If It Meant Your Ruin
by CaitFair24
Summary: The world is ending, things are changing, and Riley is fully committed to surviving. When she falls in with Rick's group, she believes she's about to get the best chance of her life. Rated M for violence, language. I do not own the characters, situations, or dialogue of The Walking Dead.
1. Stay Awake

_**Chapter I: Stay Awake**_

"Damn it!"

I sat up suddenly, painfully - bolt upright in my bed, drenched in a cold sweat, snatched from the feathery promise of sleep by fear, rippling through my every nerve. I was simultaneously, it seemed, both alive with panic and dying of anxiety.

I had forgotten to submit my assignment.

Tossing the covers back, I leaped across the tiny dorm room to reach my laptop, keyed in a title, clicked 'submit,' and then watched the numbers in the top right of the screen roll over to tomorrow. Or today, I supposed. A veritable tidal wave of relief swept over me, and I sighed.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Chloe, my roommate - musician, beauty queen, friend to small children and animals - had murder on her mind, it was evident from her expression. Her eyes glinted from a small opening in a mountain of blankets, and what little I could make of most of her face was twisted in a snarl. "It is midnight, bitch, in case you hadn't stopped to consider that the world is actually populated by people besides yourself, who might occasionally enjoy sleeping during the middle of the night." She rolled over forcefully, facing the wall and muttering further expletives.

Her anger didn't bother me too much. Midnight-Chloe was a whole different beast in contrast to Daytime-Chloe. The latter was ebullient - all smiles and sweet words. But past ten o'clock most evenings, all pretence of true congeniality simply dissipated, and I was left with this growling, spitting, downright unpleasant excuse for a best friend. Luckily, Chloe often went to bed far before this creature could make an appearance, leaving me to quietly while away the hours in the common room downstairs, or even in the library - hammering out papers, reports, essays, article analyses, and just generally keeping up with the news. As a journalism major, my primary focus was on current global events, and my mind was always tuned to the Next Big Thing.

Chloe was a music major. She had a voice that moved even me to glistening eyes (not full-on crying, God - I'm not a complete sap), and she played the piano as though she had been practicing since the womb. Her goal was to become a world-famous musician, and during one of our Typical College Nights, when we would pop something cheesy into both the DVD player and the toaster oven, we'd dream big and aloud about our futures: I would travel the world as a foreign correspondent, publishing a few books here and there, learning new languages and trying all manner of crazy international cuisine. Chloe would tour the globe as a first-class, completely-and-utterly-in-demand pianist and singer, performing at royal weddings and accompanying the Rolling Stones when they decided to try something a little different ("Picture it, Rye - me, Mick, a Steinway, and _Wild Horses_ "). Every now and then, our paths would cross and we'd meet up in some fabulous European hideaway, bustling African city, or lush Asian island. We would drink something fancy, talk about our lives, and recall when we were just two broke college students trying to eke out identities and build futures in a cramped dorm room in downtown Atlanta.

That's what I tried to focus on as I shook my head and crawled back beneath my covers, completely spent from my brief but overwhelming panic, grinning slightly at Chloe's wrath. It was endearing, really - akin to that viral video we'd watched last week, of a baby trying to mimic her mother doing jiujitsu - a feint, a ruse, an adorable fiction.

* * *

 **TO:** dmgilbert atlanta

 **FROM:** 22485546 atlanta

 **SUBJECT:** Final assignment proposal

 **MESSAGE:** Good morning, Dr. Gilbert: I'm just writing to let you know that I've selected a topic for my final assignment, due in December. Recent reporting on various news outlets and from several online sources chronicling the bouts of what is speculated to be a new flu strain have fascinated me lately. The public's response to these occurrences has also been of interest. I would like for my current events project to focus largely on a regular exploration of the issue, as well as an investigation into the various elements therein: public health; homeopathic vs. clinical remedies; health education; rural vs. urban treatment options; and so on. Several religious websites have also been posting blogs and releasing statements connecting this strain with the "end of days." While most of it may eventually be seen to be just another sensationalized, flash-in-the-pan sort of situation, I think that that in and of itself speaks volumes about the power and responsibility of journalists to circulate accurate and rationalized information to the public. I will be composing this project in journal form, and will be handing it in just prior to the exam on 8 December, the second due date you proposed. I hope this meets all of your expectations, and if you have any concerns or recommendations, please let me know.

* * *

"You seriously need to stop doing that." Chloe dumped her favourite red leather bag at the foot of her neatly made bed, and then sprawled atop it.

I looked up from my laptop. "What do you mean?"

My roommate rolled over to face me, resting her head delicately on one hand. "Oh, sweet child o'mine, you know exactly what I mean. Making my damn bed! It's creepy, Rye, really creepy. Like you're my mom or something." She shifted again, staring up at the ceiling now. "Actually, come to think of it, my own mother never made my bed this often. If at all."

Shrugging, I pushed back from my desk and took a long draught of my now-cold coffee. The vanilla creamer had separated at some point in the six hours since I'd poured it, and, though unpleasant, the experience did earn me that little jolt of caffeine I would be in sore need of by the time it kicked in. This current events journal was soundly kicking my ass. I expressed as much to Chloe.

"Yeah, well, if you spent less time cleaning up this room and making other people's beds, maybe you'd have more time to keep up with your scary-ass updates about the coming apocalypse," she said with a smirk, intended for me but aimed at the ceiling. "And don't you have a date tonight?"

Shit.

Remington Jarrett, also known as RJ the Destroyer (for reasons I could simply not comprehend) was a star on the college football team, a marine biology major, a weekend animal shelter volunteer, and - according to Melissa, Chloe's friend from choir - an absolute catch for me. "I swear, babe, you won't regret it," she'd assured me a week ago, when she'd somehow managed to orchestrate an entire semi-blind date with very little consent on my part. Chloe had encouraged her and threatened me, tossing around phrases like, "you're basically a cavewoman" and "college experience" and "getting some." Apparently, RJ himself was a big fan of virginal Neolithic nerds, because he'd "jumped" at the chance to go out for coffee with me. Fortunately, I'd been able to convince him, through Melissa, that we should choose a place downtown, rather than Jitterbug, the campus café I slogged away at a couple hours each week. Somehow, though, my desire to visit a Starbucks had been transformed into a full-on dining experience, and he'd booked us a table at an Italian bistro three blocks away from the place I'd had my heart set on.

I groaned and started to make excuses: I needed to work out; I hadn't showered in two days; my journal wasn't going to write itself, and I wasn't nearly halfway through my editing duties for that week's edition of the campus newspaper.

In response, Chloe strode over to my desk and pulled me up by the wrists. Subtlety was not her forte. "Listen to me, girl - you live in this room, the library, and the lit department. You do nothing but pour coffee, read old dead guys' writing, and search some seriously scary websites for doom and gloom all day long. This is college: you deserve some fun. And there is a hot young man over in Wheaton Hall getting himself all Axed up for a dinner with you, a dinner he's willing to pay for, just for the chance to spend some time with you." Her face softened as she chucked a thumb under my chin, the most maternal gesture she possessed. "You are smart and funny, you are resourceful, but self-denial ain't charming, sweetheart, so get your butt in that shower and wash your hair - Cinderella's going to the ball."

* * *

 _ **Entry 3**_

 _Earliest reports are difficult to locate and too vague to truly understand once found. There are reports stretching back to mid-spring of strange flu symptoms occurring in more northern regions, even a few from Europe. Towards late spring, things become firmer and more obvious, growing in intensity and frequency over the summer months. And yet turning on the evening news today, both international and national, I was surprised to see only a byline on the international channel, just a one-sentence acknowledgement that flu numbers were increasing all over the world. They call it a new strain, but make no mention of any casualties or specific symptoms. One of the stranger elements of this coverage is to be found in the true gaps of information. Like any good detective, I've tried to infuse some diversity into my perspectives, and so have subscribed to a few email lists from religious/spiritual websites and blogs that have in some form acknowledge the Disease, as I'll be referring to it from hereon out. What I receive varies, but one particularly concerning statement came from a nondenominational Christian network which simply sent out a brief message advising their subscribers to heed the warnings of Luke 21:36 - "But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." When I emailed their director of communications asking for a more illustrative quote for this project, I received only this response: "Pray."_

* * *

I hated gnocchi, and I hated that I hated gnocchi. I felt like I should like it, as much as I prided myself upon my wide-ranging palate, perfectly adapted to the life of a future world traveller. But the sight of the little potato dumplings filled me with a profound aversion, always had, and so the fact that, during the first ten minutes of our date, RJ the Destroyer ordered a plateful slathered with mushroom sauce just struck me as a terrible omen for how this experience was going to go down.

"You're a journalism major?" he asked, downing an entire glass of red wine. Was he supposed to order red wine with pasta? Wasn't there some sort of sacred rule about red versus white, depending upon the meal? I couldn't remember any of that and it didn't matter anyhow. I wasn't going to turn twenty-one for another three weeks, and RJ had proven to be something of a stickler for propriety, sanctimoniously informing the waiter that I was under the drinking age and would be imbibing only Coke or Pepsi, whatever they had. Mutinously, I'd grabbed the waiter's arm and ordered a chocolate milk instead - if RJ was going to treat me like a little kid, then I was damn well going to get a chocolate milk out of it.

He wasn't all that bad, though, and after an hour, I found myself warming to the ways in which he simultaneously met and disputed every kind of football jock stereotype the world had ever conceived. He was far from a moron, was passionate about his major, and looked at the game as merely that, a game. "It's a stepping stone only," he confided while scraping away the last bits of his gnocchi. "I'll play here for a few years, and then head to grad school, hopefully in Hawaii."

I couldn't help it; I was impressed. "What drew you to marine biology in the first place?" I asked, suddenly self-conscious about my petulance in ordering the chocolate milk, regardless of how delicious it was. There's nothing sexy about holding a sturdy glass full of chocolate milk, that's for sure. Even the Coke would've come in a more elegant vessel.

RJ smiled; it was the first time I'd shown any true engagement since he'd met me at the doors of Jasper Hall. "Honestly? I like fish."

Was he shitting me? I couldn't quite figure it out, so I laughed anyway. It felt good to laugh, to just have nothing else on my plate besides fettuccine and a boy who wanted me to smile. We started chatting in earnest and I forgot about that essay for my Shakespeare class, forgot about the fact that I hadn't been to the gym since Tuesday; even my apocalypse journal was pushed from my mind. The Disease, which had honestly been starting to niggle me and keep me awake at night, was gone, gone far away, and all that existed in the world was delicious pasta, chocolate milk, and RJ the Destroyer's perfect grin.

* * *

 _ **Entry 8**_

 _I am honestly growing concerned, and so are the reports. I interviewed an anonymous nurse at a local hospital two days ago, who confided that the flu is rampant, and that patients are being treated in unconventional ways. His statement is recorded verbatim, below:_ _ **Doctors are resorting to old remedies, like real old-fashioned stuff. There's a bad fever that comes with it, that's something they don't mention on the news. And there's a lot of secretiveness about the people that have died. I've heard of some in Arizona and California, and a buddy of mine in Colorado says he's heard a couple of people up there died of it, too. But I'm not really sure. Patients with this strain are being kept in isolation, and aren't recorded on patient sheets by their names. They're being assigned code numbers, at least in this hospital, usually starting with an M or an F to signify their sex, and then two digits for their birth year, followed by a string of other numbers that none of us at this level are really sure of. Nurses are rotated like crazy, on ridiculous rotations, and they only selected a few after an interview process to actually work with these patients. I'm not one of them, a lot of this is just stuff I've observed or been told in confidence. But I'm telling you this because I think the public should know. The news is downplaying it; it's bad and it's getting worse every week. I don't think there's antibiotics invented yet for this shit - oh, sorry, kid, my bad.**_

* * *

In the dream, I'm dead.

Well, not quite dead. Not all the way dead. I'm still wandering around, my skin in tatters and my teeth tumbling out. I walk and walk and walk, and I never go home.

 **TO:** allstudents atlanta

 **FROM:** admin atlanta

 **SUBJECT:** Classes Cancelled

 **MESSAGE:** Due to emergency measures being initiated in the City of Atlanta beginning tomorrow at 6am, students, faculty, and staff of Atlanta University are advised to check evacuation procedures to be found at the links below. We advise calm and rational behaviour, even under these extreme circumstances. We thank you for your cooperation.

* * *

At first, things seemed normal. The news still came on each night at six, but it was a pared-down affair with no commercial breaks. The reporters were sombre, grim: they showed us maps with outbreaks highlighted in a brilliant, gleaming yellow. Down in the common room, I put an arm around Chloe and pulled her in close. Despite the mountains of scary shit that had been heaped upon us over that past week, Chloe's glassy eyes and silence were absolutely terrifying to me. She was as biddable as a small child, following me around and submitting to my daily ministrations - as I entreated her to have some soup, to wash her face, as I tucked her in each night. When I was finally sure she was asleep, I kept up with the journal, but it was different from before. Less of a chronicle of work completed and more of a diary. I wrote about Chloe, about my attempts to contact my family up north, how sick and tired I was of canned soup.

Before, my Wednesday mornings had gone like this: at half past seven in the morning, my alarm clock would blare. I'd shower and get dressed in the communal bathroom at the end of the hallway, then make my bed as quietly as possible and sneak out, backpack and sneakers in hand. I loved campus that early in the morning: quiet and dewey, completely cut off from the bustling downtown just beyond our gates. It took me precisely eight minutes to walk from Jasper Hall to the student centre, where I would pick up a coffee and a muffin from Jitterbug. RJ the Destroyer would sometimes meet me there, and we'd chat as he walked me to the communications department, housed on Rose Avenue.

With the outbreak, my Wednesday mornings began to go like this - like every other morning, I'd startle awake after grabbing a few hours at some point during the long, dark night. Checking on Chloe was my first priority. Usually, she was awake by seven. I would take our ration cards downstairs and across the quad to the depot, and would bring back whatever food I was given back up to our room. It took me between fifteen minutes and an hour each morning to persuade her to eat some stale cereal, a bruised apple, or a bagged salad. Most of the rations had come from the supplies discovered in the various stores of the college cafeterias. "We can't be too picky, hon," was my usual refrain, a little morning mantra as I wheedled and cajoled my fading friend to eat something, to eat anything.

Really, we were lucky it was just the two of us; in some cases, entire families had been crammed into abandoned dorm rooms. That we were situated on the sixth floor with the broken elevator had probably worked in our favour in this regard. My daily thrice-repeated trekking of those stairs was doing wonders, however, in keeping me in shape, despite the fact that the college gym was only to be used by the soldiers who were keeping us safe.

I was grateful for the militia, whose order and firepower had done a significant amount towards generating somewhat of a sense of tense calm in the midst of a world I was now more sure than ever was falling apart at the seams. News reports stopped within nine days of the instatement of emergency measures, and that drove me insane. I was a girl who thrived off information, and being so cut off from it was pure agony. I admit to getting short even with Chloe during this time.

"Damn it!"

A dark stain bloomed across the blue carpeting of our dorm. "Shit, Chloe, why the hell would you do that?" I tossed the now-empty styrofoam bowl in the general direction of our overflowing trash can, and then hurriedly attempted to staunch the spread of the overturned soup with a sweater plucked from a swollen pile of clothes next to my bed (the sixth floor could only do laundry on Saturdays).

There was no response, but I was beginning to get used to that. Her silence was deafening, disturbing, but at least I could rely upon it. At least she was there. We had both tried to get home in the early days, when the rumours of outbreak and evacuation had first begun swirling. But I hadn't been able to make contact at all with my parents, besides a few panicked emails, and Chloe had only one garbled phone call to show for her efforts. All she could gather was that her father felt it would be safer for her to remain at the college, where she could be protected by the militia. He promised her he would try and get to the city. When she tried again a few days later, there was nothing.

And then they shut the phones off for good.

Chloe had stopped talking after that. She regressed, retreated, gave up. She cried without sobbing, weeping so silently and so constantly that her cheeks became chapped and sore. I would gently sponge her face with warm water and a gentle moisturizer that, a hundred years ago, she'd bought for eighty dollars and an argument with me. How ridiculous I"d thought it was back then - such a grand extravagance, when a cheap drugstore brand served me just as well. But by candlelight, I smoothed it over her pretty face, the scent of it remaining on my hands all night long. It was lavender, I think. Or maybe orange blossoms. Who really gives a shit, though, right?

I started sleeping with a knife beneath my pillow.

* * *

Ages ago, before the world fell apart, Chloe said, "Describe your ideal man in five words."

Her face was illuminated by the glow of her cellphone; mine by the light of my laptop. It was nine-thirty, almost time for her beastly side to make an appearance, so I decided to humour her. "Five words? Shit, give me a second."

My mind filed through a catalogue of male celebrities and guys around campus. None of them really struck my fancy, with their chiselled jawlines and neatly pressed athleisure gear. I had no real inclination towards the highly polished, perhaps because I was so driven and exacting myself. I demanded, essentially, perfection: my hair had to be immaculate; my grades a flawless 4.0; my room impeccably neat. I trained and studied and worked and woke up early to ensure my makeup was striking that impossible balance between "all field hockey and acne scars covered" and the "natural, effortless look of 'Why, no, I don't wear makeup.'"

And so when I looked at men, I looked for imperfection. RJ the Destroyer was my delightful exception: he had the chiselled jawline; the perfectly sculpted hair; the pricey, sporty clothing. But when I kissed RJ the Destroyer, I did it so I wouldn't feel lonely, wouldn't feel as though I was missing out on anything. Girls kissed people all the time for the same reason, and I was sure boys did, too. Sometimes it just felt nice to have someone warm underneath your hands and lips, to be so close to them that you could hear their laugh bubbling up before it had fully erupted. By this point, we had gone out on three dates, walked to classes together for eight days, made out a few times, and gone a little further twice. He was nice, smelled good, and made me laugh. When I was with him, I didn't think about grades or makeup or scholarships; he walked me to most shifts together at Jitterbug, so I had something to smile about for the next four hours. When we were together, I didn't think about the Disease.

But when I closed my eyes and thought about desire, I saw a different sort of man. Darker, harder, resilient, and resourceful; rugged and rough, the utter antithesis of polished and poised. I saw vulnerability encased in physical strength. How, though, to describe all this to Chloe, who dreamt only of a guy with nice hair and a good sense of humour? She desired stability and spontaneity, sweetness and generosity. How could she possibly fathom my yearning for sharp edges, for imperfection?

She tossed me a candy bar; I took a bite and pretended to ruminate. "Tall, dark, and handsome," I offered.

Chloe rolled her eyes. Her deep brown eyes. "That's three words, stupid."

"Tattooed. And employed."

The pillow she threw missed my head.

* * *

2 pillows

2 blankets (1 heavy double quilt)

17 cans of soup (chicken noodle, turkey rice, cream of broccoli)

4 boxes of cereal

9 apples

3 boxes of standard Band-Aids

2 bottles of aspirin

2-4L jugs of water

2 reusable water bottles

1 industrial flashlight

3 packs of batteries

Clothing, assorted (jeans, leggings, sweaters, t-shirts)

2 pairs of sneakers

35 protein bars

1 hunting knife

* * *

How does one go about trading on the black market? Especially when said physical market is actually housed in one's old biology lab, hidden beneath the guise of completely legitimate trading stalls, offering foods and simple wars over the table; guns and knives underneath. Oh, and what happens when one's former manager is running the whole operation?

"How much?"

Tracy smirked. "I thought you were supposed to be smart, Riley? Your money isn't worth shit anymore. I need a trade. What do you have?"

Our inventory wasn't worth much. Besides the supplies I kept a list of in my pocket, the ones I kept packed in a backpack, a duffel, and a laundry basket in our closet, we had a variety of now next-to-useless things. Textbooks, scented candles (which we were steadily burning through), makeup, a crap-ton of clothes and shoes. Nothing of extreme value. What could I trade?

I held up the rings and bracelets I'd scavenged from my nightstand drawer and Chloe's jewellery box. "You think that's good _now_?" Tracy scoffed.

Apparently not. Although, to be perfectly honest, most of the chintzy stuff hadn't been good _before_ either, with the exception of the high school graduation ring I'd worn on my right hand, and which I now slipped back on. No point giving up something so small, something that brought back good memories, especially if it wasn't wanted.

I hadn't wanted to do this, but I did anyway: I held up the bag of apples, both pairs of sneakers, and a stack of protein bars. Tracy's sardonic grin relaxed as she appraised my haul. "This'll get you one pair," she offered.

I tensed. "Need two."

She looked me straight in the eyes. I recalled working endless afternoon shifts with her; she'd made me employee of the month eight times in almost two years. At last year's Christmas party, she'd given me one of the bracelets I'd just tried to pawn. "Why do you need two, Riley?"

"Chloe."

Tracy knew Chloe only as my bright, beautiful roommate; my best friend. She'd come to Jitterbug some days during my shifts, order something ridiculously complicated with mountains of whipped cream and chocolate drizzle, and sit at the round table by the window. Close enough that we could chat without me leaving the counter. Sometimes guys would come by and try to pick her up. She was striking, certainly, with her thick, black, curly hair that she kept shining and bouncy. She was fashionable, too - delicate, elegant clothing in soft pastels. Lithe and bright. She was a walking aria.

I swallowed.

Tracy handed me two pairs.

* * *

2 pillows

2 blankets (1 heavy double quilt)

17 cans of soup (chicken noodle, turkey rice, cream of broccoli)

4 boxes of cereal

3 boxes of standard Band-Aids

2 bottles of aspirin

2-4L jugs of water

2 reusable water bottles

1 industrial flashlight

3 packs of batteries

Clothing, assorted (jeans, leggings, sweaters, t-shirts)

23 protein bars

1 hunting knife

2 pairs of Blundstone boots

* * *

 _Up, down, left, right, swipe, slash, stab._

 _Up, down, left, right, swipe, slash, stab. Up, down, left, right, swipe, slash, stab. Up, down, left, right, swipe, slash, stab. Up, down, left, right, swipe, slash, stab._

Rest.

* * *

 _ **Entry 27**_

 _Chloe won't eat. Had been able to get her to eat a can of soup, an apple, and a bar a day. She can't lift her left arm. I washed her two days ago, but she won't let me try again. Very agitated at the mention of it. Possible fever. No thermometer available and can't get her a clinic appt. Scared to mention it to a militia guard in case they assume and put her in solitary or worse. God knows how far ethics extend during This. Keeping her hydrated is main priority._

The whispers started on a Friday afternoon. Out in the hall, I heard them. Tension rippled through the entire building. Chloe tossed and turned on her bed, so I kept the door closed and planned our escape. I needed a gun.

"No can do, kid. No guns, not even here." Tracy's voice was low and serious.

I bit my lip and shifted in my new boots. "Did you hear the rumours?"

Her eyes wandered to the doors. I had come to visit her at what used to be the performing arts centre. A shelter was set up here, and Tracy, because she had been an off-campus student, was assigned a bed. Part of me wished I'd invited her to live with me and Chloe, so that at least I wouldn't have to deal with all this stress alone. At this point, I fully understood that we could not stay there at the college; Chloe was too sick.

Tracy reached out to squeeze my hand in what I'm sure she felt was a comforting gesture, even as she delivered a harsh blow: "They're not rumours. They're true; I've seen _them_. Somebody brought in from the city, she was sick when they brought her in. She...she turned."

I stared. "What do you mean, 'turned?'"

"I mean, she died first, of the fever and the sickness. They thought she'd gotten sick from a bite on her leg, and then after she died, she turned into...something, and she was alive again, but not the same. She was like an animal, couldn't speak, could only growl and kind of moan. Went crazy, going after everybody in the clinic." Tracy glanced around again and then leaned even closer, practically kissing my ear, so that I could feel her breath right on my skin. "The soldiers are scared. They shot her up, hit her in the head, and that did it."

* * *

 _ **Entry 29**_

 _Chloe no better. Will only take water. Thrashes in sleep. Fever worse. Don't want to believe what T said, but rumours won't stop. How can it happen? Not biologically possible. Can't come back from dead. New plan for gun._

* * *

RJ the Destroyer looked good in a uniform. He passed me a paper cup full of chocolate milk. He looked sheepish and self-conscious.

"It's good to see you," I said softly, and I meant it.

He nodded. "You too."

RJ had volunteered with the militia early on. He had some high school experience with Junior ROTC; he was a hulking football player with a brain - of course they wanted him. They gave him a uniform and two guns: an M3 in his hands, a revolver at his waist. I wanted the latter.

"How's Chloe?"

I shrugged. "Fine." _Fevered, thrashing, doesn't know me, probably hallucinating by this point._

"Melissa's dead."

I bowed my head. Funny, flirty, bubbly, matchmaking Melissa. Future paediatric nurse.

"You need a gun, don't you?"

I nodded, and he squeezed my hand, just like Tracy. "Where are you going to go, Riley?"

Nowhere, yet - I just wanted the security of more than one weapon. The knife I'd managed to purchase from a hunting supply store a few days before the evacuation measures were officially started - that was comforting, but I wanted more. Looking back, I don't really know what had made me buy it. Some sort of strange presentiment, perhaps; some little awareness assuring me that at some point in my very near future, I would sleep better with my hand curled around the handle of a menacing blade, perhaps?

Surreptitiously, with many glances about, he handed me the revolver and a box of ammo, both seemingly magicked out of thin air. "It's small but sturdy, just a .45," he explained quietly. "Do you know how to work the safety? How to load it?"

RJ jotted down a few directions and demonstrated both actions three times apiece. I stowed his notes in my pocket and placed the guns and ammo carefully in the bag I'd brought with me, having arrived down at the student centre, where RJ was stationed, under the pretence of obtaining some tampons for Chloe. All true privacy had been erased with the onset of the Outbreak, and so I'd had to explain in copious detail that the reason my roommate hadn't been seen in a few days was because she was currently contending with a particularly rough period, and was in sore need of some feminine hygiene products. The former math professor who'd been put in charge of Supply Station 4 had been mortified by my explanation, wordlessly pouring a dozen tampons in the requested size into my opened bag.

I nestled the .45 inside amongst them, gentle as a baby.

We didn't say goodbye, even though I think we both realized that it might be the last time we would see each other. RJ the Destroyer gave me one last kiss, but there were no words; we didn't really need them. Ours was not a great first love, more just friends who made out occasionally.

And yet, and yet, I mourn him.

* * *

"Beautiful building," my mother observed, gazing up at the entire brick-faced six stories. "Beautiful, truly beautiful - you're really lucky, dear."

I heaved my favourite blue duffel over my shoulder. Years of use had faded most of of the accent colours; the handles had been replaced twice, but still it ferried my workout gear to and from the gym, and it had seen me through eight years of field hockey and eleven years of slumber parties. Hundreds of times, Mom had offered to buy me a new one; hundreds of times, I'd refused. "Don't make a habit of getting too attached to material objects," she would advise every time.

"Yeah, it's quite something," I agreed, looking up at this great hulking structure and trying to make it comfortable with the word 'home.' How could it be? When it was so big and I was so small, so young, so eighteen? I was a child, thousands of miles away from home, in a hot southern city where everything from my accent to my hair was completely wrong. Abruptly, I felt the overwhelming urge to throw my stuff back in the car, cling to my mother, and press the gas pedal until we were back in the driveway of our home. I missed my dad. I missed my own room. I even missed my idiotic brothers.

But I was my mom's little trooper, her Braveheart, so I marched forward into the future with my blue duffel and not a little amount of self-doubt. By the time we'd reached room 645, I was feeling even younger, if that was possible, and definitely a whole foot shorter - why was everyone else so beautiful? So confident? So successful? No one in the rooms we passed en route to mine looked frightened and uncertain. They were unpacking clothing and pinning up posters with all the aplomb of seasoned, professional students. Meanwhile, I was aching self-conscious of the fact that I'd packed my stuffed owl, Harry. What an idiot - how was I going to sleep with him in front of my roommate?

But then I walked into room 645 and saw her for the first time, felt her melodious voice alight on my skin, glowed beneath her welcoming smile and understood for the first time that the building would never, ever be home, but that Chloe would.

* * *

A scream in the night.

Footsteps, yelling, fists on flesh. I grab my knife and look out into the hallway. Matt Fredericks is prone on the floor. I know him from my Wednesday afternoon government class. Around him are gathered three militia officers.

A kick lands in Matt's gut.

He curls into it, shrieks again.

Bile rises in my throat.

A second guard kicks him in the balls.

He groans, deep and aching.

I close my door with the quietest _click_ I can manage, and start to pack.

* * *

Initially, our escape was fluid, flawless, perfect. I packed up the duffel with as many supplies as it could contain. By some miracle, Chloe was alert and ready, sweating but aware. She watched as I carefully stuffed the backpack with Band-Aids, batteries, aspirin, a few cans of soup, the flashlight, and most of our protein bars. In the duffel, I crammed as much clothing as I thought we needed, mainly a few t-shirts, some jeans, a couple pairs of socks, and a handful of underclothes each. I left the quilt but rolled up two blankets, and had to leave the pillows behind. Those would be better to leave anyway, I reasoned, stuffed under the sheets on our beds, so that if anyone chose to make a shift change inspection at three o'clock in the morning, they would assume the two occupants of 645 were sound asleep.

We had eight cans of soup left, two boxes of cereal, and enough water for a few days. The bigger jugs were gone, traded a few days ago for a bottle of rubbing alcohol. We had four reusable water bottles now, filled with clean water. That would last us for a day or two if we were careful. "You can have the purple one, Chlo," I promised idly. It was her favourite colour.

She let me dress her in a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that I had to zip up for her. I pulled her thick black hair back into a tight bun, the way she'd had me do countless times before, and then slid her arms into the backpack straps. "Do you think you can handle that?"

To my utter joy, Chloe nodded.

I got dressed in much the same outfit, tucking my knife into my jeans as I'd seen in a movie once, making sure that I pulled the edges of the sweater away from the handle, thus making it far easier to obtain in the heat of a fight.

Would there be a fight?

The revolver went in the back of pants (another tip gleaned from extensive viewing of a variety of action films). It felt cold against my skin, but I was glad for it. Grateful.

"Boots now, Chloe," I told her, and helped her slip her feet inside.

We waited for 3:05 AM. Middle of the night shift change. A little bit of chaos as they transitioned by the main window on the south side of the building, by the sixth floor lounge. Leaving the stairs completely free. If we could dash down, we'd make it. Then came the challenge of the parking lot, but I had a plan for that. Run like hell, mainly.

I settled Chloe by the door of our door room when the alarm clock read the hour, precisely. And then I took one last look at home, wishing our beds were made more neatly. A split second before we left, I grabbed Harry off the nightstand and stuffed him in the duffel.

We ran down the stairs; I'm not sure where Chloe got the strength from, but I was grateful all the same. By the skin of our necks, we made it outside to the parking lot. It was then that I heard them, for the very first time.

The dead were walking, milling around outside the fencing installed by the militia. They were greying and fleshy, bloody and rotting, and the smell was positively ungodly. The noise was worse: a buzzing cacophony of moans that struck right through me, the profane din of awakened graves. How could this be? How could the world be like _this_?

We were surrounded by the dead, in the middle of a corrupt, crumbling military encampment. I had a tiny gun at my waist and a shiny, untested knife in my hand, a sick girl by my side and not a single solitary clue how we were going to escape.

Shit.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Atlanta University is deliberately designed as a fictional college. I chose to do this rather than base it on a real school because I felt that I would then have a little more freedom with layout, programs, etc :)**


	2. Wherever You Wanna Go

_**Please Note: There are brief, non-graphic references to a possible sexual assault contained within this chapter.**_

 _ **Chapter II: Wherever You Wanna Go**_

"Hey!"

At 3:17am, my heart broke.

They would drag us away from the parking lot so they could beat the shit out of me, and then they'd dump Chloe in some sick bed under the medical tent and wait for her to die or - I thought for one terrified, disgusting moment - turn into one of those walking corpses out there.

I wheeled around, dropped the duffel, and poised my knife in the air. _Up, down, left, right, swipe, slash, stab._

"Crap, Riley, put that thing down!"

It was RJ the Destroyer, and despite the early hour, despite the dead walking around campus, despite the total gravity of our situation, he was smiling. I lowered my knife. "Thanks, babe. Damn, you're like a total badass now." He winked.

He _winked_?

Yeah, he did.

That first encounter with the dead, with the walkers, was of undeniable significance in forming my post-apocalyptic identity as I now come to recognize it. At the time of my escape, I had been more concerned about the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding us than I was about the dark, impossible rumours that had been swirling for weeks. I thought a few basic supplies and good timing would be enough to get Chloe to safety, to head north or just somewhere quiet. But under a full moon in the middle of the night, I was confronted for the first time with one of the worst horrors this world now holds. You don't forget your first time.

RJ was asking me about my plan, Chloe was beginning to cry, and I suddenly felt like a little girl again - an insipid, naive little girl, looking up at a too-big building and longing to run back to her mother. I had no plan. I had not envisioned this particular brand of nightmare, you see.

Swearing, I looked back at the doors. RJ followed my gaze. "They won't be coming out for another half-hour. I'm on outside duty tonight for Jasper. Riley, do you really want to leave?"

 _Yes, no, maybe so._

I must have made some sort of noise or visual indication of assent, because RJ was suddenly firm, intent, guiding Chloe away from the fence. "There's a build-up here," he explained. "Probably because of the three rez halls so close together and the medical tent being near the gate. They can smell us, I think." He led us in between Jasper Hall and MacDuff Centre, holding Chloe gently by the elbow, as my mind raced to wrap itself around a new worldview. "But the eastern exit is clear; it backs onto the highway. There was a huge wave of evacuees every day up until about five days ago; everything's quiet now. The dead ones don't hang out there anymore, so you both should be okay for a little while."

The dead were walking. The dead were _walking_.

It took us another six or seven minutes to reach the eastern exit, right next to what had been Melissa's dorm. Beyond, I could see the Freedom Parkway, silent and empty. "You need a vehicle," RJ said quickly. "I'd give you one, but they'd hear right away. They're useless as hell anyways - those damn open-sided Jeeps. Get something reliable. Do you know how to hotwire a car?"

I shook my head. Never thought I'd need that particular skill.

He grinned, pressing a messy sheaf of papers into my hands. "The blue paper explains that. Then there's a bunch of notes on how to build a fire, a map of the city, and a USA map, too." He emptied his pockets, revealing a few more protein bars, a huge box of matches, and another flashlight. "Take these, too." RJ turned to fiddle with the locks, pulling a key from another one of his seemingly TARDIS-deep pockets. "Oh, and this." From behind a copse of bushes, he handed me what could only be a small tent, neatly folded into a canvas carryall.

My vision misted as I hurriedly stuffed the new supplies into the duffel, with the exception of the tent, which I handed to Chloe. "RJ, this is...how did you...how did you know we were…"

"Because I know you, Riley" - he half-turned, eyes flickering over my face - "I know that you can't live like this, and I don't blame you." He finally managed to unlock the bolt and then started working on unravelling the chains. "You were going to start questioning it sooner or later. When you asked me for the gun, I knew it then. That you were going to get her out of here." The gate creaked as he pulled it open. Chloe started, but I held her back gently.

"Come with us, RJ." I didn't want to sound as though I was pleading, but my voice squeaked in between the _R_ and the _J_ and you can't sound completely unflappable when your voice squeaks. I grabbed his hand. "Come with us, please."

I've forgotten many things about my life before. Some things I've had to forget, so that they don't keep me up at night. Other things have simply faded, and they may have ended up doing that regardless of everything that happened. I can't remember where I used to sit in any of my lectures, though once upon a time, I had been able to find my favourite desks blindfolded or in the dark. I can't remember my field hockey jersey number, or the name of my coach. I can't remember the colour of my bedroom walls, or the lyrics to most Christmas songs. But I will never, ever forget the rueful, half-loving, half-grieving expression on RJ the Destroyer's face as he gently explained that he would have to stay.

"I'm part of _this_ , Riley - keeping these people safe. The people that need to live here, want to. I need to be here for them. You want something different from this, and that's okay. I hope to God you make it. And there's a part of me that's like, mentally screaming at myself right now because I _know_ I shouldn't let you go, because this is a scary-ass world, but I know you won't stay. I know you probably can't stay."

"Why?" I asked, looking to him for self-knowledge. Perhaps he had the key; perhaps he knew me better than I did myself, because from my vantage point, the whole stupid motivation for this endeavour was simply to get Chloe away - I was frightened by suspicions, by silence, by Matt's scream in the night.

He kissed my forehead. "Because you're the dumbest and smartest person I know. You think two steps ahead, without any of the facts. And maybe that's what we're all supposed to be doing now, I don't know. But to me, this is the closest to safe I'm gonna get, so I've got to stay, and I wish you would, too." He cleared his throat. "I can protect you, Rye."

In one way, that was what I needed to hear. Over the past several weeks, I had assumed full responsibility for Chloe, and at this point, was facing the prospect of days on the run from what I suspected was an ominous organization. To have RJ offer me safety, protection - it made me want to cry harder. Why was I doing this? A hunch? The world was broken, raging - the dead were _walking_ ; I'd just seen them myself. I wasn't a doctor, Chloe was probably dying, and I was dragging her out into the unknown. I looked out towards the highway again, felt the knife at my side. Could I really defend her if necessary? And where the hell would we go? I was on the lookout for a minivan, something we could sleep in, as well as drive in...with no destination in mind. North, I thought vaguely, but where north? My parents were dead, likely.

The thought made me buckle and retch.

When I came back up for air, tears were coursing down RJ's face. "God, sweetheart, don't do this, please. This is stupid. Crazy."

My mom was dead. My dad was dead. My brothers were dead. Maybe walking around our street; maybe someone had shot them or taken them away…

"I don't know what's going on out there, RJ, and I don't know what I'll have to do, but I just know I can't stay here. If the world really is over, I'm not going to spend the time I have left under someone else's thumb, trading my shoes for food, watching people get beat up in the hallways, and -" I hitched a sob. I couldn't say it. I couldn't talk about what I feared the most, for Chloe and for me - less than the dead, but still frightening in the extreme.

* * *

Rhiannon Harris was, in a word, gorgeous. And a complete sweetheart, if a little flighty. I knew her from Jitterbug. She came in a couple of times a week with the same cringeworthy order: a large café mocha, triple shot of espresso, piled high with whipped cream, caramel drizzle, and a handful of chocolate sprinkles. I used to gag just taking her order, let alone making it. But she tipped big and always had a smile for me, so I would bite back my extreme judgement and simply make her monstrosity.

She had long auburn hair, usually tumbling down over her shoulders, like a mermaid.

She had bright green eyes and dozens of freckles.

She had tons of friends and golfed on the weekends.

She carried around too much stuff in her bag and was forever dumping the contents of her purse across my counter.

She once made a joke about my uniform which, yes, had a massive ladybug on it. Dancing the jitterbug. With a cup of coffee in its hand.

She made me laugh.

They attacked her in the afternoon. As though that would make it less frightening for the rest of us. Her roommate was a thirty-five year old former lawyer from downtown Atlanta named Jill, who raised the alarm by running out into the hallway and screaming for help at the top of her lungs. She earned herself a punch in the gut. They pulled her back by the ponytail.

Who do you ask for help when those who are there to protect you are doing the harming?

I was weak, ineffectual, cowardly, so I locked our door and held Chloe on her bed, singing some Patsy Cline and trying to drown out the fear. The story circulated after a few days, by the time we'd all gotten used to falling asleep to the sound of Rhiannon and Jill sobbing.

They were running low on supplies. In particular, insulin. Jill was diabetic. Rhiannon had traded most of what they had in order to keep up with her friend's needs, so she started offering her labour: she'd do laundry, clean other dorm rooms, even do some fluffing and folding for the soldiers' uniforms. And then they asked her for other jobs.

I refused to judge, even now I do. We've all got to survive, and we've all got to do different things to make it happen. What Rhiannon did she did for Jill, and I couldn't blame her for that. But what they did to her was brutal and cruel, horrifying and wrong. They took her offerings and manipulated her, and when she had enough payment and wanted to stop, they didn't let her.

I traded apples, protein bars, blankets, socks, candles, paper. Our supplies whittled down, and I thought about Rhiannon.

* * *

"I'm going, RJ. This isn't safety. It's something else. They're keeping the monsters out, but there's some inside, too." I wiped my eyes. "Just be careful."

And just like that, we were gone, me tugging Chloe along, refusing to look back at RJ lest I completely lose my shit. We were on our way to something different, on the Freedom Parkway.

RJ the Destroyer was better than they deserved. I sometimes, even now, think about what may have happened to us had he chosen to come along. Or if I had gone back to offer Rhiannon and Jill, or even poor Matt, the chance to come with us. I feel guilty about that, have done for a long time. But this world demands different choices, a differently-weighted balance between selfishness and generosity, and that night wanted selfishness. In trying to escape with Chloe, I was risking a beating, and couldn't afford to go knocking on doors seeing who would like to tag along. I am ashamed, however, that I didn't. That I didn't extend another choice.

I've been chasing that ever since - choices. Follow me or don't; agree with me or don't; sleep here or sleep there; salad or squirrel; fight or die. To me, choices are safety, choices are freedom. If we have enough security, enough time, to allow people to choose how to live their lives, then we are still able to consider ourselves civilized, still human.

And so we walked, chasing choices in the dark. Down the Freedom Parkway, towards liberty of our very own. Chloe was burdened with our clothes and our shelter; I with our food and our safety. We walked until the sun found the highest point in the sky, until the campus and the city began to fade from sight, we walked until our feet screamed in our boots, until the sweat poured from our brows. Until we saw her.

She stumbled out of the woods. By early afternoon, we'd made it to the far outskirts of the city, a little past the suburbs, beginning to near farm fields. She emerged from a little copse near the edge of one of those fields, an empty pasture. She nearly fell, gaining the lip of the asphalt tremulously, but managed, somehow, to steady herself. She saw us, and her gait increased, her stride growing broader.

She was wearing a blue dress. Properly blue, a royal blue. I fixated on that, for some reason. On the way it swung around her legs as she staggered forward. It must have been pretty, at some point - good quality, probably expensive. Maybe it was her best dress, her favourite dress. Maybe she'd saved up to buy it, or purchased it for a date, or a graduation, or her little brother's wedding. Maybe someone who loved her had brought it home, told her that it made her eyes pop. Maybe she'd danced in the dress. Maybe she'd wanted to be buried in it.

She was my first.

Not too badly decomposed, which made it worse. She had probably only been dead for a few days, walking for a little while. She'd died from the rather vicious bite on her left arm, and she was barefoot.

I dispatched her quickly, and without immediate emotion, using the .45 - which, in hindsight was a spectacularly moronic thing to do. But she was gone, crumpled a yard away, her decaying hands slowly unclenching into true death. She'd wanted to grasp my flesh, rip it from my bones. She was a monster. And so when I killed her, I didn't think about the blue dress or who she had been before. I looked at her for what she was, and that kept the guilt down. She was my enemy; she wanted me dead. I wanted to be alive, and so that left us at rather an impasse.

 _I wanted to be alive_.

Killing my first walker taught me far more about my conviction than my conversation with RJ had - it proved to me that I wanted to be alive, desperately. Not just safe, not just happy - I _needed_ to be living. My first walker was the utter antithesis of my fundamental desire for my life and for Chloe's. She was the true reason why I left the college and the militia, though I encountered her when they were far behind me: because dead is dead, and I didn't want that. And living under the complete control of an opposing force? That's just another kind of dying.

* * *

Flames licked at the sky. I held her as the city burned. There in the confines of that tiny tent, everything we had called home burned and ached and coiled with anger and fear, while together we mourned in silence, counting the dead. The dead, the dead, the dead.

The tent was tiny, and we were cramped within it. But we were together. Chloe's fever had long since abated, though she was still a little delirious, a little distant. I tucked her into the sleeping bag that night, draped extra blankets overtop. I sang to her, chatted to her, ran my fingers through her hair, fed her, packed her up, and led her through the Georgia countryside.

We had only been gone two days when we encountered a safe campsite on the side of the road, nestled into the ditch. I set up the tent and tucked her into bed, and persuaded her to eat some soup and half a protein bar. I chewed on the rest while I prepared to try my luck with a minivan left abandoned on the road (the true appeal of the campsite, to be honest). I tidied up our stuff and then slipped my boots back on, preparing to take advantage of the fading afternoon light.

"Rye?"

Her voice was a revelation, a safe harbour in the storm. I looked over. She was gazing right at me, the prettiest smile in the entire history of the damn world softening her face. "Rye."

I fell into her embrace and sobbed. It had been weeks since she'd been so lucid, so clear. Her face was relaxed, her eyes bright but not glassy. It was as though she'd finally, finally woken up. "Oh my God, Chloe, oh my God," I cried into her curls. "Thank God, thank you, thank you."

She stroked my hair. "It's okay, Rye. Don't cry, sweets. It's all going to be fine."

We stayed in that pose for what seemed like hours: her holding me, me weeping into her front like a frightened child. We both smelled terrible and looked worse. Gone were the days of Internet makeup tutorials, weekend shopping trips, early morning conversations along the general lines of, "This shirt with these jeans?" and "High ponytail or beachy curls?" We were gross and unbelievably happy.

Chloe began to sing:

 _We were born before the wind,_

 _Also younger than the sun,_

 _Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic._

 _Hark now hear the sailors cry,_

 _Smell the sea and feel the sky,_

 _Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic…_

The first time I got drunk, it was the afternoon I almost failed a biology test. I came damn close, but was saved by a few bonus questions I had miraculously gotten correct. Matt from down the hall was always good for supplying an afternoon six pack to underage students, so I'd hit him up on the way back from class. After three cans, I was feeling nauseated and self-pitying, and after five, I vomited. A girl from our dorm found me in the washroom, so she texted Chloe, who rushed home early from rehearsal to put me to bed. She reassured me that I hadn't failed outright, and convinced me that a single introductory biology class wasn't going to have much of an impact on my future as a foreign correspondent journalist. She offered to help me draft an email to my professor, requesting an extra credit opportunity. She told me I was still smart, still awesome, that she loved me and that my parents would still love me. "You are way more than a number on a transcript, Rye," she'd said. "Getting drunk and puking in the bathroom _is_ an important college tradition, but you are worth so much more."

Chloe didn't like Van Morrison much, didn't enjoy his Celtic-gypsy-rock vibe, but she listened to him for me, sang him when I needed her to - when I was stressed, homesick, or just plain maudlin. Or when I was hungover, apparently. She hummed and trilled a few bars of my favourites, stroking my hair until I fell into a deep, humbled sleep.

By the side of the road, I left her after a while, mumbling something about needing to check on the van. We laughed a little about our erratic appearances; she made a little joke about the Bride of Frankenstein. Handing her the .45, I explained how to shoot it. "I won't be far, but I'd feel better if you had this, okay?" She nodded.

As I stepped outside the tent, I breathed deep and steady for the first time in a long time - maybe I'd actually been holding my breath since that first email, since I started writing the journal, even. It certainly felt like that. My lungs expanded with ecstasy, and I gazed up at the fading sun with all the gratitude of a desert traveller encountering an oasis. The world still sucked, but Chloe was _with me_. The world was still broken, but Chloe was in it.

And then I heard the gunshot.


	3. Oh, Darling

_**Chapter III: Oh, Darling**_

The best way I can entirely encapsulate Chloe's life philosophy and our relationship is to chronicle those last five minutes of her existence. That was Chloe, pure and simple: music and love. Her singing that song to me was about preemptively soothing my broken heart. She knew how terribly that would hurt me, losing her, especially after all I'd done to keep her moving, to keep her alive. So she sang my favourite song and stroked my hair and made me smile. She gave me a few minutes of hope and a few bars of a song, because that's all she could do.

I don't blame her, and I have never been angry at her for that shot. My decision to drag a dying girl through the backwoods of Georgia was probably the most fundamentally selfish thing I have ever done in my life. Keeping Chloe alive was about protecting myself; losing about her was all about Chloe's agency.

The tent seemed lightyears away, yet in two paces, I was inside. She lay there on the floor, half-covered by her sleeping bag, no trace of a smile on her ruined face. Eyes closed. I held her as she had held me only minutes ago - the warmth of her hands and her blood, oh God - pushing her hair back over the wound as though that the only remedy needed. To bring her back. I rocked her, a baby, but I couldn't cry.

I had loved her from that first moment we met, when I realized she would be _that_ friend - you know the one, the kind they make movies about? The person, my person, that I was supposed to be looking for - how lucky was I to have found her so young? So often, shitty rom-coms will convince you that that person is the one you fall romantically in love with, the one you marry and have kids with and all that stuff. But for some of us, I'm convinced, that person is just simply _your person_ , the better half of you. Your aspiration and inspiration, your reason for waking and facing another day. They give you the strength to aim higher and be brighter.

That's not to say Chloe was perfect; no one is - not even _my_ person. She was cranky and a little arrogant at times (when you're that talented, though, how could you not have an ego issue?). She was impatient and she never left the cap on her toothpaste. She was always late for everything; she just couldn't see the virtue in making your bed each morning. But I loved her. Oh, did I love her.

Looking back, I'm not quite sure how long I held her in that tent. At least an hour, I think. The sun was dripping into the horizon by the time the walkers arrived. Whether they had been drawn by the noise of her shot, I don't know, and who really, honestly, could give a damn in that moment? What matters is that they came, and I had to make a decision.

It's funny, but the first time I saw the walkers, outside the gates of Atlanta University, no one had told me what they were. I'd heard the rumours, of course, but really, they could have been just that: rumours, horror stories whispered in the dark. But when I saw them milling around the gates, moaning and growling and buzzing with intent, I knew. I knew what they were, what they wanted. I knew they wanted me; they were dangerous. I knew that to get bit was to die and turn; to get grabbed was to lose flesh and blood. I knew that I now lived in a world where humans were unequivocally the greatest threat to humanity. Instinctively, as though I'd always understood, right in my bones, in the deep gene memory of all who had come before - I knew it would come to this: that the natural, symmetrical, inevitable threat to the living must be the dead.

Hearing them approach, options fluttered through my mind: let them come, be torn apart; or fight. Chloe hadn't been able to do so, and that was okay. Like I said, I didn't blame her. But I wanted a world of choices, and so I deliberated for a moment about what would be mine. A bolt swiping through the evening air helped me to decide.

"Shit, girl, move!"

The gruff new voice triggered action. With Chloe dead, a part of me had simply assumed the world would be silent from thereon in, but that thick Southern growl shocked me into reaction, dodging out of the way of the falling walker with the bolt through his forehead. I shifted and took Chloe with me, and then aimed my knife at the temple of the second dead one, who had tripped over her companion. I dug it so deep into her left temple I couldn't wedge it out again, but that was fine for the moment, because she died again with a shudder, and I had a chance to breathe.

"Damn it."

A pair of strong, corded arms reached through the tent flap to pull both bodies away; I assisted by pushing on my kill with both feet (serving me the dual purpose of releasing my knife and ejecting her from the tent). I wanted to be ready when my rescuer came in. Knife poised, I prepared to greet my guest.

Suffice it to say, he was something else. At least twenty-five years my senior, he had the precise presence of every stranger-danger example my mother had ever cited. Face knotted with anger; scruffy jaw; sleeves ripped clear off his shirt. And a gaze like a snake - any moment, and he would strike.

But I wasn't afraid. Not one bit. Instantaneous trust is probably something most people would be highly suspicious of, and under normal circumstances, I would completely agree. Trust and interdependency are earned, not the result of the briefest of interactions. Possessing an interesting face is not the sole prerequisite for becoming affectionate travelling companions; however, being young, alone, grief-stricken, and confused will tend to converge upon the mind in such an assault as to completely boggle all sensibilities, so that the fact that this individual was an adult with a crossbow met my only current stipulations for trust.

"You good?"

It was the first of many times that he would ask me that question, but at that initial moment, it seemed like such a ridiculous query. I was covered in blood, cradling the broken body of my best friend, perched within a now-ruined two-man tent, staring with equal parts incredulity and relief at my rescuer.

I could only nod, jerking my head as a general indicator of agreement. Adjusting my now-aching grip on Chloe's body, I was cold, terribly cold, chilled by the gaping breadth of an uncertain future: what was I to do? Chloe had just taken away my only purpose in all of this. But she needed to be buried, I needed to clean up the tent, and then a new choice had to be made…

"I'm Daryl," he said abruptly, crawling a little further into the tent and casually removing the bolt from the first corpse's forehead - as though it were the most ordinary method of introduction in the world; Emily Post's number one tip. "We've got a camp not too far from here, if you want to come with me." His offer was cagey, gruff.

And his voice, with that sweet southern twang dancing between each word - his voice put me in mind of dark things: of undergrowth creeping along the forest floor. It drummed up vague notions of moonshine in mason jars, cigarettes burning on cracked asphalt; the buzz of cicadas all summer long. He possessed an active pair of hands: tucking the bolt back into his crossbow; shifting Chloe's backpack so he wasn't sitting on it; wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow.

"Come with you?" I swallowed hard. Coughed. "With you?"

Daryl nodded curtly. "Yeah, to our camp. It ain't much, but it's people. Bitch to be alone these days, girl."

The rest of our afternoon together went by in a relative blur. He dug a shallow grave for Chloe at the foot of a pine and bundled her up in the sleeping bag. It pained me to leave her in the ground so bloody and broken, but the day was fading fast. There was no funeral, no semblance of anything spiritual: Daryl took her feet and I cradled her head and together we nestled her among the roots. "They can't get to her, can they?" I asked as we began shoving my supplies back into the duffel and the backpack. The tent was a definite write-off, Daryl had explained. Between Chloe's blood and the mess left behind by the walker I'd killed, it would reek to high, merciful heaven.

He heaved the duffel over his shoulder, adjusting his crossbow (which he wore slung across his back) to make room. Pulling a pack of smokes out of his pocket, he shook his head. "She's safe now, kid." He cupped his hands around a cigarette as he lit it. "They don't dig."

And we started to walk.

In retrospect, the whole ordeal was strange. Those early days saw a less, er, _refined_ Daryl: ornery and unpleasant, committed only to hunting and to his brother. He's never told me why he didn't just keep walking that day, or why he didn't leave me alone after killing the walkers. Now, I suppose it was simply because he was Daryl, and Daryl has, in spite of many factors, one of the best hearts you can find. He's gone down some different roads during the time that I have known him, but essentially, our first meeting on the road - killing those walkers, burying Chloe, leading a grief-stricken girl through the woods to safety - fully epitomizes a fundamental truth about Daryl Dixon: that he was a good man.

We trudged through the forest for less than forty minutes, picking up the quarry road quickly. The tropical, dreamy blue of the water below contrasted strikingly with the hard grey granite surrounding us - seemingly carved from the Earth, stretching high above as we rounded the soft curve of the hillside. On the ridge, an RV and several tents perched cozily, trees growing nearly to the edge of the encampment; the high peak provided excellent surveillance in all directions, even to the north, where lay a little valley surrounded by a ring of trees and brush. It was, in short, the perfect campsite for survival.

These observances, however, took place later, for Daryl and I arrived quite late in the evening, when the light had grown dim. We strode past an assortment of vehicles lined up at the edges of the camp, and were met, to my surprise, with suspicion rather than welcome: a lanky, dark-haired man with too much swagger for his own good calmly raised a shotgun to rest upon his shoulder. It formed a subtle threat, I thought, as though he were attempting to demonstrate the group's firepower; but I couldn't help but suspect that if there was a firefight, he would be a sore disadvantage in attempting to get it down from his shoulder, cock it, and shoot. By that point, one of my .45s could be resting in his forehead.

Yeah, right.

"M'ask you somethin', Dixon," he drawled, not taking his eyes off me for a second. "The squirrels up near Moreland? They grow 'em different up there?" The man guffawed suddenly - like, an honest-to-goodness guffaw; I'd never heard one before personally, and immediately decided that I had no real desire to repeat the experience.

Daryl just shrugged, silent.

The man looked me up and down. "What's your name, baby girl?"

I didn't like the way the endearment curled from this man's lips - this man who didn't know me, who smirked and swaggered and postured like he was the absolute shit. Another boy's voice echoed in aching memory: I was somebody else's baby girl, somebody's sweetheart, somebody's honey. I was nothing to this man; he was nothing to me. Ghosts pressed firmer at my sides, and my gaze slid over to Daryl - looking for something nameless.

People have often pointed out that I frequently look to Daryl before answering questions. I'm self-conscious about this habit, and so have, naturally, taken the time to interrogate what I believe to be my reasons for doing so: it's not that I seek his approval, or feel that he is in some way responsible for me. It's also certainly not that I believe myself to be, as a young woman, subordinate to this older man (oh, hell no), forced to verify my every instinct and interaction with his permission before making a move. Quite simply put, I just like looking at Daryl. His is an interesting, dynamic face (for someone with approximately 2.5 expressions). The truth of the matter is that Daryl calmed me, continues to do so, really, so that I when feel myself poised on a major precipice between significant decisions, looking to him makes me think of that first moment we met, when he risked his life to save mine. At the exact moment I thought I was entirely alone in a broken world, Daryl Dixon burst out of the Georgia backwoods and swore me back to action, intention, and awareness. Because of him, I was alive. Looking to him reminded me of that - reminded me that without even knowing a single thing about me, he had thought I was worth the time and the effort it took to save my life.

Before answering the lanky idiot in front of me, then, I glanced at Daryl. He was chewing on his left thumb, and intentionally avoiding my gaze. Would he be in trouble for bringing me back here? Or had I just stumbled into something worse than the college. I began to panic that I could see no women. Was this what they wanted me for? Had Daryl brought me back here to be used and abused like Rhiannon?

Daryl's face, however, despite his distraction, was smooth and open. Logic reminded me that he was certainly strong enough to have disarmed me and dragged me here, or taken me right in the tent, if that had been his goal. He had had a myriad of opportunities to hurt me, as did the guy in front of me. But they hadn't - yet. Again, choices: I chose to believe the best of them, because they were currently my only hope. "My name's Riley," I replied, still looking at Daryl, realizing that he hadn't asked for my name. No change arrived in his expression.

"Well, Miss Riley, you're more than welcome to join our camp, under one condition," the other man said unctuously, shifting his shotgun to the other shoulder, "and that, pure and simple, is that you will pull your own weight. We've all got a job to do, and if you're gonna eat with us and live with us and benefit from our protection, baby girl, I'll need you to help out with the providing of all that. Got it?"

Too tired to muster any snark, I nodded.

"Good." He grinned. "We'll hear more about your story tomorrow. For now, go find Lori. She'll help you figure out where to put your stuff and where to get something to eat. Tell her Shane sent you over. She and her son have some extra room in their tent.

"Now, d'you got any weapons on you? I'm going to have to keep ahold of them until tomorrow, at least. 'Til we've got a better idea of who you are."

Just like that, my knife and revolver were gone. Though I'd only had them for a short while, it felt unnatural, jarring to be without them so suddenly. I was a little relieved, though, in one way, to be unburdened of the .45, simply because it had brought about the biggest loss I'd ever felt. Even the murky, suspected deaths of my family were nothing compared to the gut-wrenching experience of holding poor, dead Chloe in my arms and watching that awful stain spread beneath her head…

"Hi, sweetheart, I'm Lori."

My first impression of Lori Grimes? She was a mom. I know, stupidly simplistic, but it was the only way I could think of her. Pretty, certainly, with her long dark hair and snapping eyes; statuesque and graceful, she was a ballerina in flannel. But Lori was first and foremost a mother, and the warmth of her voice and the gentleness of her hands was such a reprieve from the stress of the past few months that as she carefully brushed strands of blood-caked hair away from my face and offered me a bowl of beans, I finally, blissfully, wept.

* * *

It was probably the best sleep of my entire twenty-one years. I came back to life in Lori's tent, wrapped up tightly in a clean, flowery set of sheets, my hair inevitably dented from the pillow; my eyes crusted with old tears. There were vague memories of the night before: Daryl, the lanky man, Lori, bans, a bath in the quarry lake, soap in my hair, and a little girl placing Henry the owl in my arms. He was still in my grip, bald and ancient, but smelling somehow of home. Of Chloe's orange blossom and/or lavender moisturizer. Who had the little girl belonged to? Lori had a son, didn't she? Maybe she was Daryl's?

Mouth like a desert, my head aching deeply, I was for the first time in a long time acutely aware of my own hunger. I'd been so focused on getting Chloe to eat that I had been neglecting many of my own needs. The meal last night had been the first true one I'd consumed in many weeks - before that, it had been cereal, soup, and protein bars. I rolled over in the sheets, tucking them up high against my chin, and then promptly realized I was clad only in underwear and a bra that didn't belong to me.

Crap.

Panicked, I scanned the room: there were a few piles of clothes near the cot I was laying on, but from the look of them, they belonged to Lori's little boy. I turned to face the mattress on the opposite side of the tent and there, mercifully, was a neatly stacked set of clothes with a small piece of cardboard laying atop them: "For Riley."

The jeans were mine, but the t-shirt wasn't - a pale orange thing, impossibly soft to the touch. I slipped it on over my head and then spotted a stick of deodorant sitting on an overturned plastic tub. Thank God.

It felt marvellous to be clean and dressed, to not be packing or running or plotting escape - it felt blessedly normal, to be honest, and I relished in having the time to stretch the sheets taut across the camp-bed and to straighten the pillow. Outside, the camp itself was already busy and bustling; Lori was chatting nearby, with a short-haired woman who offered me a shy smile in welcome. Warmed by the gesture, I approached. Both carried sacks of what I could only assume was laundry.

"Good morning, sweetheart." Lori dropped her bag to rub my back. "How are you feeling?"

I tried to smile. "Fine, thank you. And thanks again for the food, and taking me down there to wash. You have no idea how, uh, amazing that was." Her companion clucked her tongue in sympathy and reached out a freehand to brush my straggling bangs free of my face.

"You poor thing," she sighed, her delicate features creasing in dismay. "Daryl didn't tell us much - why don't you come sit down and we'll get the others? You can tell us how you ended up out there, while you eat. If you don't mind, that is."

I didn't. Lori found me a bowl of oatmeal and a peach, and then she and Carol gathered a few other members of the community to make introductions. The lanky man from the night before was Shane, I found out: a former sheriff's deputy in nearby King County; then there was Ed, Carol's husband, the type of man who practically has "asshole" scrawled across his forehead; Amy, a blonde and friendly girl a few years my senior; and Carl and Sophia, the children of Lori and Carol respectively. I immediately recognized Sophia as the girl who had so carefully placed the stuffed owl in my arms as I fell asleep the night before. "And this is Miranda, and her kids, Eliza and Louis," Amy finished, as I shook hands with the small, quiet Latina woman and smiled at her children. So many names, so many faces - I hoped I could remember them all.

The kids in particular seemed intrigued by me, or perhaps it was just the novelty of a new person. They peppered me with questions about Atlanta, questions I did not quite feel like answering. "Are there walkers there?" Eliza tugged on my shirt and I caught her mother's caged expression. Carol had explained they had a supply run team out in the city, not expected back for a few days yet. It was likely that Eliza's father was among them.

I smiled down at the little girl, aiming for 'reassuring.' "Not very many, I don't think. I only saw three when we were leaving." No point in worrying the kid.

"We?" Shane's suspicious gaze was locked on me, tight as a vise. "You and Daryl, you mean?"

And so I told them the story of Chloe. I started back at the beginning, that semester, talked about my current events project and the way I'd studied the news reports surrounding the Disease. I even told them about RJ and the militia, but only implied what I'd witnessed in the hallway and what I'd heard about Rhiannon, related in in a code privy to adults, embedded in tense looks and vague gestures. Again, there was no need for the kids to hear that. I told them how I'd wanted escape for Chloe, who had been slowly succumbing to some wasting illness. "Was it the Disease?" That question came from Dale, an approachable, middle-aged man who owned the RV.

Was it? I don't think she was about to turn, but she certainly had been sick. It could've been something simple that, because I did not have ready access to antibiotics, had been able to fester and attack her more thoroughly than under regular circumstances. I still had so many questions about the Disease - was that what turned people into the walking dead? Or was it a bite? Or from the dead feeding on corpses, which then reanimated? My journal was somewhere within the depths of my duffel bag, but it likely would not have clarified anything anyway: my reporting over the last several weeks had grown erratic and hyperfocused on Chloe's health. There would not be any major clues.

But how to proceed here? If I told them I suspected Chloe had died of the Disease, would they still allow me to stay? Then again, if I intimated that it was some wracking cold or debilitating strain of flu, they might also ask me to leave. In that small room with her for weeks, though, particularly with my lacklustre diet and extreme stress, if I was going to catch something, I would've displayed symptoms long before then. I decided to hedge my bets.

"I'm not really sure she was genuinely sick." I glanced around the group, noting that Daryl was sitting on a lawn chair set far apart from all of us. His crossbow was leaning against his knees and his face was trained on mine. When our eyes met, he looked away. "I think she just gave up. She was scared and stressed, and really started to go downhill once we lost contact with her dad. I think she died of a...a, um, broken heart...as silly as that sounds."

"Not silly at all," Lori said gently, reaching over to squeeze my knee. "We understand."

Act three saw me plotting our escape, how we'd marched down the Freedom Parkway and camped where and when we could. Just three days, though, was all we'd had. And then came Chloe's choice.

That was how I _had_ to think of it. Any other view of the event served only to break my heart a little more. I was living in a world without Chloe, but the fact that it had been purely and wholly her choice offered the tiniest scrap of absolution: at least, then, she had wanted. At least, then, she had been at peace.

I cried in the telling of our story, and it was only then that I realized I must have been speaking for a good hour or so. The kids had long since skittered away to play, all except for Carl. He was an unusual child of maybe eleven or twelve; small for his age, but with an alertness to his face that brought me pause. He had seen so much already. He knew a lot. The loss of his father was weighing visibly on his young shoulders at this point, a fact I would not even discover until a few hours later. But in those early moments, when I was still a stranger, and it was so touching, so sweet, so purely Carl: he hugged me.

Keep in mind, please, that this child had known me for only approximately two hours. I was a complete stranger, and we were living in terrifying times, when the danger of strangers had been heightened astronomically. And he was an adolescent boy - not typically your most demonstrative set. But he reached out and embraced me with all the warmth of his mother and that made me feel, more than anything else, that I _could_ be a part of this community.

My first day with the quarry camp was easy. Lori and Carol wanted me to rest and recuperate, so I spent my time unpacking the duffel and the backpack and donating my supplies to the larger camp supply, with most of it remaining in Lori's tent. I did take a box of matches, another of Band-Aids, and a few cans of soup and head over in what I thought was the general direction of what I figured was the location of Daryl's tent. I managed to find Miranda and clarify that it was indeed over towards the edge of the woods, and that it was a khaki-coloured structure. "But _mija_ , I don't think you should go there alone." She twisted her hands before pointing towards the site. "Those Dixon men are a little rough around the edges."

I assured her that I could handle myself. I only wanted to thank him formally, offer him a tangible symbol of my gratitude. After all, they didn't make cards with zippy rhymes for "snatching me from the jaws of death." And I wasn't afraid of him, even though it was evident that Miranda and several of the others were. So I simply smiled and headed over in search of the khaki-coloured tent by the edge of the woods.

Daryl was sitting just inside of his tent, the flap only slightly open. I didn't know how to announce my presence; there was obviously no doorbell, no way to knock. I settled on just clearing my throat. "Hey," I ventured.

He looked up, blue eyes bright and flashing, but didn't say a word. Surprise and resentment battled for the spotlight on his face, and I questioned then, if I really should proceed - Miranda's warning echoed in my ears. But on the road, at the lowest point of my life so far, I had trusted him instantly. Choices - I made another one.

Holding out my offerings, I took a tentative step inside his tent, crouching so I could climb through the flap. "Just wanted to bring these by, to say - well, y'know, just to say thanks. For saving my life." I shoved the bag of supplies at him. "I'm sure you probably have your own stuff, I just didn't think it was fair that I hold onto all my shit, I mean, sorry, my supplies. You know, just to show I want to be a part of everything you have here." Oh, hell. I never spoke this much. "If you want them, I mean. You don't have to take them if you don't want them."

Daryl had been fletching some new bolts. He shifted the tools from his lap to the floor, reached over and took the bag, and then gestured idly to the cot opposite his. "You always talk this much?"

With that glib remark, all of my brewing tension dissipated, and I laughed. "No, I, uh, try to avoid it as much as possible, actually." He reached into a cooler and grabbed two cans of beer, offering one to me. I accepted.

"Aren't you going to ask if I'm twenty-one?" I asked as we flicked open the tabs in unison.

His mouth twitched. "Why? You think Officer Asshat out there is checking IDs?" He took a deep, languid swig.

"No, I guess not." The beer tasted like shit and college, but it was wet and I was parched. "I am, though - twenty-one, I mean."

"Good for you."

They baffled me, his manners. That he could allow me into such a personal space, invite me to sit on his brother's bed, offer me a beer, and then continue to hold me at arm's length. I carried on chatting, hoping to disarm him with my wit and my jokes, gradually becoming aware that I liked him, this strange man, and I wanted him to like me, too.

I was drawn to Daryl from the very beginning, for reasons I am still not entirely clear about. Certainly the fact that he was good and kind was a major factor, combined with his efforts to save my life and the gentleness with which he had lowered Chloe into the ground. That he had stopped to dig a grave for her at all had touched me deeply. But from a different point of view, Daryl Dixon was no angel. He was indeed rough around the edges, especially in those early, angry days. He could be vicious and even violent when provoked; he carried a cruel legacy of abuse in his every move. The weight of his past became, at times, too much for him to carry around, and he would take it out on those around him. But he is also loving and generous, brave and selfless - he just needs the right stage to show it. If you have Daryl Dixon on your side, you need never be afraid.

When I approached his tent that afternoon, though, I really think I was just chasing a high. After such a long time of caring for and protecting Chloe, of being the one to call all the shots, it was such a damned relief to have someone around who just led me where we ought to go, who just needed me to follow his lead. It was a break, I guess, and it was wonderful, for a little while. Going to visit him that day was as much about expressing gratitude as it was about basking in the glow of that feeling one more time, about shifting my burden of responsibility onto someone else's shoulders. If, however, I had had any true inkling of what his own burdens were, I probably wouldn't have tried to give mine to him. But then, I suppose, things are meant to be, and my emotional dependency upon Daryl has entered an interesting stage of reciprocation, so that it is less a process of me leaning on him constantly, and more of an interdependency, wherein we lean upon each other when we need it most: a relationship, a friendship.

I couldn't charm him, though; too used to dealing with boys my own age, who would laugh at even my stupidest jokes and who had no pressure on them other than GPAs and internship prospects, the task of bonding with an outdoorsman twice my age who didn't seem to particularly enjoy speaking, and who was likely regretting ever even considering the rescue of the girl in front of him (who just wouldn't shut up) - that was just too weighty a task. I was struggling.

After about ten minutes of very little interaction, I wasn't feeling too successful, so I just gave up. I gave him what I hoped was an apologetic smile, and then made a move to leave. But then he spoke.

"Sorry about your friend," he growled, but not without sympathy. I looked back; he stared me straight in the eyes, and that's when I understood: I didn't want to be around him; I _needed_ to be. Just as I had once craved Chloe's presence to keep me on an even keel, to help me recall the best parts of myself, to aim high and be bright and all that good shit - I now felt the same way about Daryl Dixon. Winning even the smallest smile made me glow; being around him made me feel safe, balanced; with him, I was capable of deeper introspection and keener outward observation.

I once had a professor who said a writer's true soulmate was inevitably an editor. An editor helps to balance a writer's soul, to keep their crazy in check, to bring out their most brilliant ideas in the clearest of ways. An editor changes the parameters of the game so that the writer can play in the real world. I used to think that I was Chloe's editor. She was the beautiful, crazy, creative one, the one who couldn't necessarily live in the world in the ways it demanded. I was always chasing around after her, clarifying her attitude, critiquing, evaluating, helping her understand how to channel herself into the paths and purviews of the world around her. Chloe was the one who wanted to write her own story; I was the one who checked her spelling, added punctuation, rearranged the wording, and made it all flow. I translated her.

But in the new world, _I_ was the one who needed an editor. I needed someone who understood the rules and conventions in a way I couldn't; who could keep my stubborn independent streak in check; who could help me see that my lofty ambitions of adventure and liberty were not always possible in the context of rampant death and destruction. My wandering writer's soul needed an editor, a translator, and with that brief, beer-soaked exchange in his khaki-coloured tent, I realized that Daryl was my person, too. My person in the real world, the one who would help me to understand it, and help it to understand me.


	4. Guts

_**Chapter IV: Guts**_

Daryl left a day and a half later, on a hunting trip, and Lori and Carol took this opportunity to pull me aside for another warning. My first visit they'd excused, apparently, since I had been merely attempting to express my gratitude. But on the morning that he left, he had taken me down to the lake to teach me a few defensive tactics with the hunting knife Shane had ever so graciously allowed me to carry, and that raised a few eyebrows.

"He's just, a little...oh, I don't know." Lori looked to Carol for help. Both women had offered to accompany me for my first official day of working in the camp, which included, today, preparing the evening meal for most families - beans again, this time with canned corn on the side. I was scraping out the last few cans of the latter when Lori decided to launch into a detailed lecture on why I shouldn't be spending so much time with Daryl Dixon.

"Rough around the edges?" I offered helpfully, echoing Miranda's words. They both nodded with enthusiasm, and then proceeded to provide a significant amount of similar advice, to the point that I just had to excuse myself and make some sort of vague reference to a promise I'd made to Dale, who was currently in charge of surveillance.

I enjoyed spending time with Dale, who reminded me a lot of my father. An armchair (or rather, lawn-chair) philosopher with a healthy perspective on this whole apocalypse situation, Dale provided me with a certain reprieve from both the well-meaning interventions of Carol and Lori, the grating presence of Shane and Ed, and the sometimes confusing interactions with Daryl. Though I had, by this time, come to realize that my burgeoning bond with Daryl held the potential to be one of the most important relationships I could possibly forge in the new world, I also understood that he needed space, and that I could swiftly extinguish any possibility of connectivity by pressing my time and personality upon him too frequently. In essentials, I needed to back off.

With Dale, I didn't have any such qualms. We both enjoyed each other's company, in particular during his surveillance shifts, which typically took place in the afternoon. For those first few days, I would climb atop the RV and join him in surveying everything from the woods behind us to the lake below us, to the city far, far away. We would talk about many things: politics, war, time, people we had known, things we missed, things we had hope for. It was intellectually stimulating and I relished the time we spent together.

On this particular day, as I climbed up the ladder to join him, however, Dale's mood was a little more sombre. "What do you miss?" he asked without looking in my direction, just gazing out at the cityscape beyond.

I sat. I thought.

 _Chloe. My family. My friends from school. Peace and quiet. Indoor plumbing. News. Good coffee. My job, come to think of it. School. The future. Hope_.

"Indoor plumbing." I was trying to be glib, trying to lighten the mood. I hoped he would take my cue, because I really didn't feel like getting too deep right now.

Dale continued to look out towards the horizon. He heaved a deep sigh, and I dreaded what was coming next. I didn't want to cry today; I wanted to be brave today. "Me too."

And we laughed.

Apocalypse laughter is a strange creature. You feel guilty about it, every single time, no matter if it's been two minutes since you saw something bad, or two months, or hell, two years. Every time I laugh, I feel the absence of Chloe and RJ and my family and everyone we lost from the group. Every time I laugh, I feel the guilt snap taut within me, singing like piano wire and slicing right through me. That's the thing about apocalypse laughter - it doesn't come without pain, or a lingering note of tragedy - but you laugh anyway, because if you don't, you're not really living. We can scavenge all the food we want; we can find a doctor and we can forge alliances and we can establish rules and we can _survive_. If we don't have something to laugh about though, then we're not really living. And that comes down to choice. You survive or you live. You survive so you can live. And when you're living, you can choose joy, you can choose humour, and you can choose love. Without those things, there's not much left to distinguish you from any other human, alive or dead, just walking around looking for their next meal.

We spent about another hour up there, putting the world to rights and chatting about books and what had been my career goals. It jarred me still to think that everything I'd been working towards my entire life had been shattered in the space of a few weeks. Dale told me a few stories about his travels through some of the southern states and his retirement to Florida. At about four o'clock, Ed arrived for the shift change, so we climbed back down and Dale set about helping Jim, a fellow survivor, to perform a few basic repairs on the RV. I decided to hang around and observe; I knew nothing about vehicles - in fact, I hadn't even gotten my driver's license at sixteen like the rest of the nation's teenagers. But I felt it was important to pick up any new skills I could at any time; you never know when they would come in handy.

"Boy, that hose isn't long for this world, is it?" Dale observed to Jim, both of them peering at one of the various tubes or pipes or whatever the hell was going on under the hood of the RV.

Jim shook his head. "No sir."

"Where the hell are we gonna find a replacement?" Dale was visibly concerned, and I read the unsaid worries in his voice: what if we needed to make a quick escape and move a lot of our people at once? The RV was our best chance for that.

After a long morning of foraging for mushrooms, and then a busy afternoon sorting and preparing them for dinner, Amy's mind was free of distraction and perfectly at liberty to worry endlessly over her sister, Andrea, who was part of the supply run. She had taken to wandering around camp, wringing her hands. "It's late," she said tersely, approaching us at the RV. "They should've been back by now."

Dale reached out a comforting hand. "Worrying won't make it better."

No, it wouldn't, but it was certainly something to keep you busy.

And that was when the call came through.

The walkie-talkies and radio were set up on a shaded picnic table near the centre of the camp. They were capable of picking up several different frequencies; one of which was used, I'd been told, to communicate with the supply groups when they went on runs into the heart of the city. The crackling of their frequency trying to make contact was unusual, I gathered, based on the instant, passionate response to the sound. Was there a possibility the group could be in trouble?

" _Hello, base camp! Can anybody out there hear me? Base camp, this is T-Dog. Anybody hear me?"_

At the first squawk of the radio, Dale rushed over, picking up the mic and immediately engaging. "Hello? Hello? Reception's bad on this end. Repeat. Repeat."

It crackled again. _"Shane, is that you?"_

By now, more of the camp members had gathered. Lori and Shane left Carl playing in the sand to listen in. Lori started rubbing her arms, an anxious tic. "Is that them?" she asked.

Another squawk. _"We're in some deep shit. We're trapped in the department store_. _"_

Shane brought his fists down on the table. "He said they're trapped?"

 _"There are geeks all over the place. Hundreds of 'em. We're surrounded."_

The radio went silent. So did we.

"He said the department store," Lori said quietly.

Dale sighed. "I heard it too."

Lori turned to Shane, saying his name entreatingly, questioningly. She tended to do that quite a lot.

Our fearless leader, however, was adamant, despite her cajoling. "No way. We do not go after them. We do not risk the rest of the group," he said firmly, rubbing his head. A sign of indecision, perhaps? ""Y'all know that."

Amy grabbed my hand and squeezed it. It was a supremely familiar gesture, and I thought immediately of Chloe, had to look down and make sure it wasn't her. But Chloe would've hand a ring on every finger and a pile of bracelets on her wrist, and Amy's was bare. I shook my head to clear it of memory. "So we're just gonna leave her there?" Beside me, her voice broke.

Shane rearranged his features into what I'm sure he felt was an empathetic expression. "Look, Amy, I know that this is not easy…"

"She volunteered to go to help the rest of us!"

He exhaled. "I know, and she knew the risks, right? See, if she's trapped, she's gone. So we just have to deal with that." Shane rubbed his head again - yeah, it was definitely an outward display of inner stress. "There's nothing we can do."

You could taste the tension on the air; Amy's fury was equally tangible. "She's my sister, you son of a bitch," she spat, and then stalked off, nearly wrenching my hand off in the process. I had no real choice but to follow, as did Lori.

Inside the RV, it took us nearly an hour to calm her. She was impossibly angry with what Shane had said, and honestly, so was I. He had no right to lay out the rules of the world in such a cruel way for her, no right at all. Sure, he was probably correct: if the supply group had gotten themselves surrounded by a significant number of the dead, then it was only a matter of time before the glass gave way or their respective wills did. But encountering the laws of the new world for the first time was a very delicate business, not be undertaken lightly nor without sensitivity. Sure, we'd all seen the dead walking by this point; lost someone; watched someone turn, possibly. We'd all done things we never thought would be necessitated. We'd all left comfort far behind us and had our life philosophies stripped down to the very basics. But this was Amy's _sister_ , not just a supply group. This was someone she loved and had grown up with; someone she needed. Maybe the only family she had left.

Lori and I stayed with her for a while, letting her cry out her worry and her grief. She cried so much that she fell asleep on Lori's mattress, so we left her there and went off in search of something to eat. We had done all we could possibly do - we couldn't bring her sister home to her; couldn't make all this better. There's no quick fix or magic spell that could erase all the bad things, or even the potential for all the bad things. They were bound to happen, like an inevitable, oncoming storm. We were here to be part of it. That was all we could count on anymore.

God, was I sick of beans.

* * *

 _ **If you have the time and/or inclination to provide a review, they would be much appreciated :)**_


	5. Tell It To The Frogs

_**Chapter V: Tell It To The Frogs**_

Amy woke up soon after we'd finished eating and she insisted that I move from Lori's tent to the RV, at least for the night. She normally shared the back bedroom with her sister, Andrea, and she said it would give her some semblance of normalcy and comfort to look over in the middle of the night to see me sleeping across the floor on the twin be opposite her. I didn't mind, really. It was nice, in one way, staying with Lori and Carl, almost like being part of a family, but I was beginning to suspect that there was something going on between Lori and Shane and I didn't like being a part of it. The death of Carl's father, Rick, was at this point still painfully fresh in the boy's mind, and knowing that I was inadvertently supporting his mother sleeping with his father's former partner (by agreeing to watch Carl at random intervals throughout the course of the day and evening), well, that just didn't sit right with me, somehow. I guess it wasn't truly infidelity, since she was, for all intents, purposes, and assumptions, a widow, but it still felt just a bit wrong.

So I packed up the duffel and moved into the RV with Amy and Dale, hoping beyond all hope that in a few days, Andrea would arrive and kick me out of my new digs - and I would be delighted.

That night, though, I choked on bad dreams and woke with the bitter taste of grief upon my tongue. I had dreamed of RJ the Destroyer and my poor, dead Chloe. I woke too early; the sky was still the palest shade of mauve imaginable, and so I contented myself with quietly sitting at the kitchen table, listening only to Amy's steady breathing and Dale's intermittent, guttural snores. There was a small stack of notepaper nearby, and after writing myself out, I fell back asleep upon it.

"You were brighter than / all the stars I saw outside my / window, so I cry." Dale's voice stirred me some time later. I opened a bleary set of eyes to see him holding, appraisingly, my hastily-scrawled haiku from the early hours of the morning. "Lovely. Riley, really lovely. I've never quite understood what draws some poets to the haiku form - I find it too constrictive. But you've obviously got a knack for it. Coffee?"

Beet-red, I stuffed the paper into my pocket and nodded. Poetry was uncharted water for me; I had just taken one creative writing class, last year. I always felt uncomfortable about delving too deeply and too abstractly, but I had enjoyed the haiku format. It offered me just enough parameters that it made decisions about wording, expression, and voice all the more swift: haiku backed you into a corner, demanded five syllables, then seven, and then five more. Its specificity necessitated both economy and creativity; a world within a net. You could shift around your tone and your line breaks, but you couldn't change the five-seven-five metre, and I appreciated that.

The professor who had delivered that writing course had emphasized the immense power of poetry to purge emotion. She had taught us to capture what was bothering us upon the page, in whatever way suited us best. "Once you've got it on your slide - that feeling, memory, or idea - you can then put that slide under your microscope. You can analyze it from all sides; zoom in close, or zoom out to take a broader view. When things are dancing around your head, it's so much harder to understand what they mean. When you've got them pinned down in a design of your own making, then you can analyze them to your heart's content."

Chloe and RJ had haunted my dreams the night before, but that was a normal part of the grieving process, I'm sure. I was still concerned that I had not done nearly enough to convince RJ to come with me, or to rescue Rhiannon, Jill, Matt, or any of the others. Why hadn't I? What had really stopped me from doing that? Was it that I didn't want to be confronted with any further evidence that I was wrong? I had left behind the closest thing to government Georgia had left; I had walked away from military protection, rationed supplies, organized companionship, and impenetrable fences. I had wandered out into the blue, thinking that protein bars and a knife could protect us both. Conceited; egotistical. Some part of me must have known that if I had knocked on enough doors that night, I would've gotten more no's than yeses - and that would've given me pause. And, stupidly arrogant as I was, I didn't want that bruise to my ego.

The poem had helped. Initially, it had been for Chloe, but it worked for RJ, too. They had both been brighter than me, in many ways: more ebullient, more intelligent, more loveable. I had loved and envied them both in equal measure. And now I was without them. And now I was without them.

Sipping at the coffee Dale had placed in front of me, I tried to make a plan for my day. Amy was likely still going to be stressed, so I thought perhaps we could take over the schooling that Carl, Sophia, Eliza, and Louis required - based on their parents' wishes, not theirs. They had a few textbooks and notebooks, and it hadn't been that long ago that Amy and I had been in elementary school ourselves. I was sure we could figure something out. Spending time with them - with their relative positivity (considering the current shitstorm) and jokes - might be just think to offer Amy a few hours' reprieve from constant anxiety and (hopefully) premature grief.

By the time she woke up and was dressed, the camp outside the RV was fully into the swing of the day. Eliza and Louis were already in the midst of their first argument, Miranda was busy resolving it, and Lori was preoccupied with giving Carl a haircut near the main fire-pit. Amy went off to look for something to eat while I settled myself down next to Shane, who was preparing some kind of contraption, to watch. Carl was growing distracted and impatient; I found myself grinning at his expense.

"Baby," said Lori, adjusting the position of her son's head, "the more you fidget, the longer it takes. So don't, okay?"

"I'm trying!" Carl whined.

"Well, try harder." The scissors snipped away, and Shane exchanged a look. I'd always hated haircuts as a kid, too.

"If you think this is bad, wait 'til you start shaving." Shane shifted some element of _whatever_ it was that he was constructing. "That stings. That day comes, you'll be wishin' for one of your mama's haircuts."

Carl's face was sour. "I'll believe that when I see it," he snapped.

"I'll tell you what," Shane chuckled, "you just get through this with some manly dignity and tomorrow I'll teach you something special. I'll teach you catch frogs."

Lori and I indulged in a mutual shudder. With all the overconfidence that twelve year old boys are typically blessed with, Carl assured Shane that he had indeed caught a frog before, but Officer Asshat just shook his head. "I said _frogs_ , plural. And it is an art, my friend. It is not to be taken lightly. There are ways and means. Few people know about it. I'm willing to share my secrets."

Sensing that the conversation was about to veer towards frog recipes, I decided to excuse myself to go check on Amy. Just as I had approached the RV and was about to stick my head inside, though, a strange noise from the past suddenly came screaming back over the hill. For a split second, I deliberated, wondered - and then I realized: it was a car alarm.

The camp erupted into chaos. "Talk to me, Dale!" Shane marched immediately over to the RV, calling up to the older man, who was serving his mid-morning surveillance shift. He was gazing out across the landscape with a pair of binoculars, and just shook his head in response.

"I can't tell yet."

Amy rushed to my side, and together we stood back to get a better view of the road. Panic was beginning to kindle somewhere in my gut; this sound could draw a hell of a lot of the dead ones. Were we ready for a fight? "Is it them?" Amy tightened her grip on my upper arm. "Are they back?"

Dale lowered his binoculars. "I'll be damned."

"What is it?"

He half-laughed. "A stolen car is my guess."

The first vehicle that shrieked up the drive to the perimeter of our camp was low, sleek, and red - a lottery kind of car. You know the ones: people who win it big on the powerball and then immediately look for something flashy and substantial to advertise their ridiculous wealth to the rest of the world? I'd never really seen a car like this outside of movies and magazines.

A young, good-looking Asian man, probably a few years older than me, closer to Amy's age, popped his head out of the driver's side window, grinning hugely. "Hi!"

"Holy crap! Turn that damn thing off!" Dale was irritated, it was clear from his face, but Shane was absolutely furious, hurrying over to the car while the new man protested that he didn't know how.

"Pop the hood, please. Pop the damn hood, please." Shane smacked his hands on the front of the car to chivvy him along, but it only added to the overall chaos. As the man emerged from the driver's seat, Amy rushed us both over to him forcibly bringing me along based on the ever-increasing strength of the grip she was maintaining on my poor arm. She began haranguing the guy for information about Andrea, fighting to raise her tearful voice over the cacophony of the car alarm and Shane's enraged requests that the damn hood be opened.

"Is she okay? Is she alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, okay!" Gone was the absolute euphoria sketched all over his face; the newcomer was visibly frustrated by the verbal assaults from so many corners, and reached back into the car to lift the hood with a much downcast expression. "She's okay, she's okay."

But Amy wasn't done. "Is she coming back? Why isn't she with you? Where is she? She's okay?"

"Yes! Yeah, fine. Everybody is," the man explained, his tone shifting abruptly. "Well, Merle not so much."

Merle, I knew by now, was Daryl's older brother and the other half of the "Dixon men" I had been repeatedly warned about. My stomach sank as I imagined what news Daryl was coming back to at the camp. Had he died? Been bit? Those weren't, however, questions for me to ask.

"Are you crazy, driving this wailing bastard up here?" Officer Asshat rounded on the new guy. "Are you trying to draw every walker for miles?"

Dale, admiring the car, interjected: "I think we're okay."

"You call being stupid okay?" Shane's glare flashed crimson, even as his voice lowered dangerously.

"Well," Dale turned to look the younger man directly in the eye, and I suddenly had flashbacks to my middle school principal, "the alarm was echoing all over these hills. Hard to pinpoint the source. I'm not arguing, I'm just saying. But it wouldn't hurt you to think things through a little more carefully next time, would it?" He levelled a serious look in the new man's direction, who just nodded sheepishly.

"Sorry. Got a cool car."

I laughed out loud. I couldn't help it; the look on his face was tremendously endearing. "Yeah, pretty cool," I agreed, and he grinned right at me, introducing himself as Glenn. I returned the nicety, and then he started to ask me something about my arrival, but was cut off by the approach of another vehicle, this one just as ridiculous as Glenn's transportation, but in terms of size only. For practicality purposes, it was actually a welcome addition: a large white cube van.

The first person to hop out was leggy and blonde and could only be Andrea. Finally, my new friend released my arm and ran into her sister's arm. The heartwarming reunions continued as Eliza and Louis' father, known to me only as Morales, embraced his wife and children. Amidst all of this palpable relief and contentment, I empathized most with Cal and Lori, who were also standing awkwardly on the fringes of the group. We had no one in the group coming back to us, no one to worry about, and no one to rush into our waiting arms. Lori's husband, Rick, had died in the early days, and grief for him (and possibly jealousy of his friends) was written clearly all over her son's face. Lori knelt to talk softly to him, and I looked away, tried to focus on the conversation between Dale, Shane, Glenn, and Morales. If I did that, I wouldn't cry.

"I thought we had lost you folks for sure," explained Dale, hugging Morales.

"How'd y'all get out of there anyway?" Like me, Shane was studiously trying to avoid the sight of the tearful, embracing families.

"New guy," Glenn replied, smiling. "He got us out."

Shane snapped to attention. "New guy?"

"Yeah," Morales chimed in, "crazy _vato_ just got into town." He turned back to the van. "Hey, helicopter boy! Come say hello." To Shane, he added: "The guy's a cop like you."

A man, probably in his mid- to late-thirties, rangy and strong, emerged from the van and approached the group, cagey in his gait and in the eyes. "Oh, my God," he whispered, scanning our faces.

Carl was in his father's arms in a split second; Lori not far behind. We all stood in shock and amazement, because Rick Grimes had come back from the dead. And though he had not yet said a word to me, though he had not truly said a word to anyone, I felt at once that this man was to be our general, our captain, our chief. Instantly, I knew that I would follow him anywhere - he had such an easy, open smile; a bearing of gentle authority, and yet simultaneously possessed a simmering intensity somewhere deep behind his eyes that I knew, instinctively, needed only the slightest of sparks to ignite to great, leaping, vengeful flames. Yes, I decided, making another new choice for my new world - I would follow Rick Grimes wherever he went.

The rest of the afternoon passed by in a blur. We enjoyed our canned beans that night, all of us basking in the glow of Carl's pure joy. It was a win, really, for all of us - the supply run hadn't been completely successful (in that there were no actual supplies brought back), but most everyone had survived. Add to that the veritable miracle in our midst, and even the third night of flavourless legumes straight from the can, seasoned only by the smoke of our fires, was completely invigorating.

Rick regaled us with the story of how he had survived, describing in detail his harrowing journey from the hospital to the city; his entrapment in the tank and Glenn's role in his rescue. "And from the look of that hospital, it got overrun," he added.

Shane nodded, poked the fire. "Yeah, looks don't deceive," he agreed. "I barely got them out, you know?"

Rick looked at his wife and son. "I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane. I can't begin to express it."

"There go those words falling short again," Dale said, thoughtfully. "Paltry things."

I was happy for Carl, Lori, and Rick, but I was also uncomfortable with the knowledge that Lori and Shane _were_ most likely sleeping together. I shifted, tried to avoid eye contact with either of them, and was given a brief reprieve as Shane went over to speak to Ed about his too-large fire. In his absence, Rick and Lori gazed lovingly at each other, leaving me to admire how well Lori was able to mask her obvious inner turmoil.

Lost in my thoughts and the dancing of the flames, I was startled back to reality by the low mention of Daryl's name. "He won't be happy to hear his brother was left behind," Dale was saying.

Merle Dixon had - surprise, surprise - gotten completely out of control during the supply run to Atlanta. Although his erratic and sometimes violent behaviour was anticipated by the rest of the group, he had reached a point that Rick felt was unsafe for all involved, and so had restrained Merle on the rooftop of a building downtown. When T-Dog, another member of the supply team and the quarry group, had returned to unlock his handcuffs, he had accidentally dropped the key down a drain through the concrete. Now, looking doleful but determined, T-Dog insisted that he be the one to tell Daryl about Merle. "I dropped the key. It's on me."

"I cuffed him," Rick interjected firmly. "That makes it mine."

"Guys, it's not a competition," said Glenn. "I don't mean to bring race into this, but it might sound better coming from a white guy."

 _That_ gave me pause. Was Daryl racist? Or was Glenn just assuming that because he was, well, a stereotypical "redneck" in most every other sense, that someone from the backwoods of Georgia would have something against T-Dog just because of the colour of his skin? I sorely hoped that was not the case. It made me feel ill to think I had been so admiring of someone who held such views - but then I remembered how gently he had wrapped Chloe up in the sleeping bag, how carefully and respectfully he had lowered her into the ground. A racist man would've just left her body behind, bloody and alone in the tent, wouldn't he?

T-Dog was adamant. "I did what I did," he countered evenly. "Hell if I'm gonna hide from him."

Suggestions and arguments were parried back and forth, until T-Dog revealed the operative element to the entire situation. "I stopped long enough to chain that door. Staircase is narrow. Maybe half a dozen geeks can squeeze against it at any one time." He stared into the fire. "It's not enough to break through that...not that chain, not that padlock. My point...my point is that Dixon's alive and he's still up there, handcuffed on that roof. _That's_ on us."

* * *

The next morning, I was enlisted to help Dale and Jim strip down Glenn's fancy red car for parts and gasoline. I had no real clue what I was doing, but I'd always been good at following directions, and the two men supplied them in excess. "Nice job," Jim commented, as I managed to attach a length of plastic tubing to the gas receptacle, stuffing the edges with a rag to create a seal, and thus increasing the air pressure in the tank. "You're a quick learner."

Glenn, however, was heartbroken. "Look at 'em," he observed to Rick, who had woken late and approached to have a look at our work. "Vultures. Yeah, go on, strip it clean."

Dale's response was not without a little sympathy: "Generators need every drop of fuel they can get. Got no power without it. Sorry, Glenn."

"Thought I'd get to drive it at least a few more days," Glenn muttered.

Rick just smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Maybe we'll get to steal another one someday."

We continued to work on ravaging poor Glenn's car for another twenty minutes or so, until I asked Jim if I could take a bathroom break. Embarrassed (he was one of the shyer members of the group), he jerked his head in consent and I retreated to the relative coolness of Dale's RV. It was less of a need to pee and more just a desire for a minute alone that drove me there. I'd spent last night sleeping in the reclined front seat of the RV, while Dale snored behind me on the sofa bed and Andrea and Amy chattered until dawn. The resentment I felt towards the sisters made me feel guilty, and that kept me awake even more than did their voices. Bearing witness to so many happy reunions the previous night had only served to highlight my loneliness. I had no one to greet, no one to wait for.

I had been made to feel quite welcome in my new little corner of the world. The quarry group had provided me with food, with shelter and company, with safety. But for nearly three years, Chloe and I had been so overwhelmingly, claustrophobically close that to be without _someone_ was near torture. I was glad for Amy and Andrea, for Lori and Carl and Rick, for the Morales family, too. The ache, however, of yearning for _someone_ to come home to me, or for me to return to, was overpowering. I thought about Daryl, then, in the dark of the night. He would be arriving within the next day or so, we suspected, and he would be arriving, unfortunately, to bad news. I tried to picture him stepping out from the woods and smiling to see me; throwing our arms around each other and gripping so tight that neither of us could see straight - but even I, queen of the wildest daydreams, couldn't come up with those images. Daryl Dixon was taciturn, reserved. Even if we became best friends, I doubted if he'd ever feel moved to throw his arms around me.

In the daylight, last night's musings made me squirm. Did I like him? Like, did I _like_ him? Ugh, the grade school tenor of it all had me mentally shuddering. Who gave a shit, really? Daryl would come back and would be so upset and angry over the loss of his brother that, in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't matter at all.

Distracted, I stepped into the bathroom - and then nearly jumped through the ceiling as a chorus of screams tore through the quarry.

When I came out of the RV, Lori and Carol were ushering the kids out of the woods and forcibly sitting them in lawn chairs around the fire pit. The mothers began hurriedly examining arms and legs, and my stomach sank as I realized what they were looking for: bites.

"Everyone okay?" I lifted Sophia's right arm to check while Carol studied her legs. The kids nodded.

"Walker in the clearing," Lori explained, an inscrutable message somewhere in her eyes. "Daryl's back."

He certainly was. The commotion from the woods died down after a few minutes, but I remained with the kids. Sophia had attached herself to my hand and didn't seem to want to let go, so I just kneeled beside her chair and offered her a few comforting words. They hadn't been hurt; we'd established that, but both kids were still, understandably, worked up from their ordeal. Encountering the dead ones up close and personal, especially unarmed and alone, was a terrifying reality of our new world. That it so frequently threatened our children was an added horror.

"Merle! Merle, get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel. Let's stew 'em up." Daryl had emerged from the woods, swinging a brace of the critters and heading towards the fire-pit opposite us. His expression was trained on his prizes; I couldn't have caught his eye if I'd really, honestly wanted to.

It's a strange thing, looking at a person and knowing their heart is about to break. Daryl was fiery and intent in this moment, but I knew once Shane or Rick or Dale or anyone told him what had happened to his brother, I would watch his whole demeanour change. I felt helpless, suddenly, and at the same time, profoundly useless. I should help him, but how? How do you stop the inevitable onrush of truth?

"Daryl." Shane and the others had finally caught up to him. "Just slow up a bit. Need to talk to you."

Daryl was suspicious, narrowed his eyes. "About what?"

Instinctively, I stood, Sophia's hand falling from mine. I wanted to walk closer to him, but my legs weren't brave enough. What kind of claim did I presume to have on this man? That it was my job to comfort him? That it was my role to stand next to him as he received the worst news of his life? He wasn't going to be looking for a shoulder to cry on, I knew. He was going to look for someone to kill.

"About Merle. There was a…" Here Shane hesitated. "There was a problem in Atlanta."

Gradually, slowly, Daryl's manner altered. He ducked his head down, all at once looking years younger. An ache clutched my heart - he was like a little boy, just for a moment, just for a moment in his anticipation. When he raised his head, though, that ferocity was biting again in his eyes. "He dead?"

Biting his lip, Shane replied: "We're not sure."

Not knowing if his brother was dead or dying, being eaten alive by walkers - that was probably the worst thing Shane could've handed him. I suspected that even being told that Merle was dead, that they'd watched it happen, that it had been quick and that he probably wouldn't have known what was happening - I suspected that that, compared to this uncertainty, would have been some form of comfort, of mercy. But Shane gave him uncertainty, and that enraged Daryl Dixon.

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl insisted. The tension escalating within our community was palpable, electrifying to the touch. Daryl's furious grief was quickly drawing lines in the sand. Lori, Carol, and Miranda tried to draw their children away; I saw Amy step closer to her sister. I had no one to comfort me and besides, I wanted to do the comforting. Daryl's pain was composed neatly on his face, easily translatable. But I had no clue what to do about it, or even if it was my place to try.

Rick approached the group, his hands held up in unconscious surrender. He spoke calmly, evenly. "No easy way to say this," he began, looking Daryl straight in the eye, "so I'll just say it."

"Who are you?" Daryl snapped.

"Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes, you got something you want to tell me?" Daryl asked scathingly, but he was already sure. The bark in his tone said it all: _I am lost, I am breaking, do not tell me this_.

It must have been a part of his training as a police officer, because Rick's calm tone remained consistent, soothing, even as he explained this - well, I hesitate to call it an outright "tragedy," because it was _Merle_ , but to his brother it certainly was tragic - to Daryl. I admired him for it. "Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him to a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

Daryl's eyes flickered to mine and, like a magnet, I took a step forward. We had had just a few conversations together over the past few days, but I gathered that those conversations together constituted more social interaction between Daryl and the quarry group than anything that had occurred prior to my arrival. Choices, choices - I made mine. I took another step towards him, but he already returned his attention to Rick. Pressing his knuckles to his eyes, he punctuated each word he said with a gesturing of the bolt he still held. "Hold on. Let me process this. You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof, and you left him there?" His voice was beginning to rise.

Rick nodded gravely. "Yeah."

All hell broke loose. Daryl lunged at Rick, and despite his slimmer frame, Rick was able to shove him off. Daryl took a few staggered steps back and then crouched, and I saw the flash of a knife. T-Dog saw it too, and shouted a warning.

I was frozen, shocked at the display. Daryl made a few threatening moves, but then Shane managed to come up from behind and grip him into a chokehold. "Okay, okay," he muttered, in what I'm sure was meant to calm Daryl, but which only served to inflame his anger even more.

"You'd best let me go!" he yelled, struggling to break free.

"Nah," said Shane, as he tightened his grip and tried to lower Daryl closer to the ground, on his knees. "I think it's better if I don't."

Daryl was coughing, his face turning red. "Choke hold's illegal."

"You can file a complaint," Shane replied, and I rolled my eyes. "Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day." Finally, he managed to get Daryl's knees touching the ground, and leaned against him, forcing Daryl to lay flat down.

Rick squatted in front of his face. "I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?" There was no response. He raised his voice. "Do you think we manage that?"

"Hmm?" Shane shook Daryl slightly.

"Mmm. Yeah."

Shane let him go and Daryl scrambled to his feet. The entire display had altered the atmosphere in the camp entirely; the kids were holding on tight to their mothers; most faces bore expressions of extreme shock. Miranda caught my eye, offering a look that plainly implied, " _See? Rough around the edges_." For my part, though, this situation simply confirmed what had preying somewhere at the back of my mind since my arrival. At the college, disputes and disagreements had been met either with posturing or with violence. I thought back to Matt in the hallway; Rhiannon sobbing upstairs. There was bureaucracy and arrogance, cruelty and injustice.

This was the first major dispute I'd witnessed at the quarry camp; I'd watched it play out from the beginning. Instead of beating Merle to death or putting a bullet between his eyes, the group had simply sought to disarm him, to give him, essentially, a time-out - what had occurred there afterwards with T-Dog and the key amounted to an unfortunate accident, nothing more. Additionally, T-Dog had ensured that the door was well-locked, so that a rescue attempt could be made, with more time and better equipment.

Around the fire last night, every member of the group had been given an opportunity to share their opinion on the matter. Some suggestions were more welcome or diplomatic than others, but the fact remained that the stronger, more influential members of the group (including Rick and Shane), had listened quietly to all input. When the dispute had reached a boiling point with Daryl, he had not been beaten or shot - he had been safely, if illegally, restrained, simply to prevent harm to himself and to others, and to restore some sense of calm and logic to the situation.

The food and shelter were nice, the kindness appreciated, but that fight about Merle made me feel safer within Rick's group than I ever had under military protection. There at the quarry (and beyond), there were choices and freedom, deliberation and debate. People did not rush headlong into violence, and when they needed to utilize force, they did so purposefully.

"What I did," Rick explained, "was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others."

"It's not Rick's fault," T-Dog interjected bravely. "I had the key. I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?"

T-Dog glanced around at anyone besides Daryl. "Well, I-I dropped it in a drain."

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it don't," Daryl growled.

"Well, maybe this will." T-Dog inched a little closer to Daryl, who was breathing heavily and looking positively the definition of the term 'murderous.' "Look, I chained the door to the roof - so the geeks couldn't get at him - with a padlock. It's gotta count for something."

There was a beat, a space of time and silence in which we all worried the same thought: how badly could this turn? "Hell with all y'all," Daryl shouted, shattering it to pieces, swinging his arms wildly. "Just tell me where he is so's I can go get him."

While Lori, Rick, and the others debated the prospects of a rescue mission accompanying Daryl into the city, I took a few steps closer to him. I didn't reach out a hand to touch him, didn't want to startle or overwhelm him. Again, it wasn't my place to offer comfort to him, but that didn't temper my intrigue. Daryl Dixon is a very interesting individual, and I suppose I did quite enjoy studying him.

In the aftermath of the discovery of Merle's ordeal, as I watched him try to catch his breath and calm his overwrought sensibilities, I realized that Daryl Dixon was one of those unique people who, essentially, need only rely on himself - no one else. While Shane needed dependents to feel strong, and Rick needed followers, Daryl truly could survive by relying wholly on his own wit and instincts. The way he had burst out of the woods the first time we met had proven that to me. He was physically fast, lightning-fast, and his decision was equally swift. While others deliberated and planned, Daryl _reacted_ , and this certainly was a world of reaction now. The democratic debate the night before had assured me that this was a far more egalitarian situation than the one I had left, but I could still concede that sometimes, there was no time for debate. You needed people to just _do_ , and Daryl was one of them.

Despite all of this, though, as I watched his face crumple and his shoulders hunch, I understood: he misses his brother. He misses his brother. He _needs_ his brother. And I could feel nothing but pure pity for this grown man on the verge of tears before me. He was reacting, and there was no one here to make him feel better. He was alone, just like me.

* * *

It took the group an hour to organize the mission. It was decided that Daryl, Rick, T-Dog, and Glenn would go, driving the cube van back to the city limits and proceeding to the rooftop where Merle had been left. A second goal was added, as Rick explained to us all that he had brought with him from King County a bag of weapons. "Six shotguns, two high-powered rifles, over a dozen handguns," he explained, to Shane's incredulity. "I cleaned out the cage back at the station before I left. I dropped the bag in Atlanta when I got swarmed. It's just sitting there on the street, waiting to be picked up."

"Ammo?" Shane ventured.

Rick smiled. "Seven hundred rounds, assorted." His partner whistled in response.

His wife, however, was less than pleased. She rounded on Rick, accusing him of abandoning his family as soon as they had been reunited, and all for worthless Merle Dixon and a bag of guns. Carl was tearing up by her side. "Make me understand," she demanded of her husband.

"I owe a debt to a man I met and his little boy. Lori, f they hadn't taken me in, I'd have died. It's because of them that I made it back to you at all. They said they'd follow me to Atlanta. They'll walk into the same trap I did if I don't warn him." Rick was earnest, gentle, but there was that force behind his words, that intense conviction in what was right and what was wrong. Even Lori was swayed.

"What's stopping you?" she asked, quietly.

Rick explained to us all that he had left a walkie-talkie in the gun-bag; the other one he had left with the man who had saved his life. "Our plan was to connect when they got closer."

"These our walkies?" Shane asked, and Rick nodded.

"So use the CB," Andrea suggested. "What's wrong with that?"

Shane shook his head. "The CB's fine. It's the walkies that suck to crap. Date back to the seventies, don't match any other bandwidth, not even the scanners in our cars."

We all started as the van's horn beeped rudely. Daryl had hit it with his feet from the back of the vehicle. "Come on, let's go!"

Other members of the group started to offer their goodbyes and best wishes to the departing four; Shane and Rick put their heads together at the back of the latter's Jeep - from what I could see, Shane was offering his partner a handful of bullets. As I watched Glenn step inside the van, I was suddenly struck by an immense desire to join them. I wasn't sure of how much real help I could be - but I had some skill with my knife and if nothing else, I was a fast runner. I knew something of the geography of downtown Atlanta, as well, likely more than Rick, Shane, or Daryl. No street names or firm ideas, really, but I could probably find my way from the edge to the centre no problem.

Choices - I needed to make them. Sitting back at the camp was one; accompanying the rescue group into the heart of the dead-ridden city to rescue a total douchebag and retrieve a bag of guns was another. Making choices was living, participating, and that was what I wanted more than anything.

I approached the back of the van, ensuring my knife was still tucked into my jeans. I didn't need much anything else, I didn't feel the need to ask anyone for permission, and I didn't really have anyone to say goodbye to. I just heaved myself up into the back, surveying the space to find a spot to sit - but Andrea had grabbed my arm.

"What the hell are you doing?" she hissed, pulling me back. Drawn by the abrupt commotion between us, Lori and Carol also approached.

"Riley, honey, you can't go with them," Lori said calmly, loosening Andrea's grip and rubbing my back comfortingly. "You don't need to...it'll be too dangerous."

Five minutes before, I'd been lamenting the lack of people to miss me, but now Lori and Andrea's concern was simply irritating. Didn't they realize what I'd already accomplished? Just a twenty-one year old girl, I'd freed myself and Chloe from an unjust military regime, defended us against the dead. I was capable of a whole hell of a lot more than sitting around a fire and folding laundry.

I forced a smile of reassurance. "It's fine, Lori; I want to, I need to help. They could use an extra pair of hands, I'm sure."

It took me several more minutes and much more wheedling to convince my doubters that I was willing and able to participate in the mission. Lori appealed to Rick, hoping he would be able to dissuade me, but he merely questioned whether I was making this decision based on my perception of an obligation or of an actual, personal desire to help. He wanted me to be very clear about my reasoning, particularly since he could not totally guarantee my safety. I assured him that I was crystal clear on the matter.

Settling down next to T-Dog in the back of the van, I glanced across to Daryl, and looked him straight in the eye. I tried to will him to understand why I was jeopardizing the life he had saved: I had a debt to be paid, and I couldn't do it through laundry and baked beans. I hoped he understood.

We drove for the better part of an hour. The back of the van was interminably hot, and we were jostled around quite a bit. T-Dog passed the time by asking a few quiet questions about where I had come from, how I had gotten to the quarry. "Daryl brought me," I replied.

For his part, Daryl had no obvious reaction to my presence in the van. I didn't allow myself to feel slighted by this, because (as I reminded myself) this was not about earning Daryl's favour. It was about repaying his generosity with assistance, and it was also, simply, about making a choice and trying to live, rather than just survive. After all, what makes you more aware of being alive than actively risking your life?

Sitting there in the van, I was suddenly, inexplicably, and overwhelmingly grateful to be alive. The cold dark earth held no appeal for me. Chloe and I weren't together anymore, and that was okay - that was how it had to be. My parents were probably dead, too, and my brothers, my best friends from home, my grandma, and my old classmates, too. All those innocent, special people - people I'd loved and respected and hugged and kissed and never once thought to call and warn beyond a few early, panicked messages. All those nights I'd sat up on my laptop, Googling nightmares and watching the world slowly fall to pieces, and nothing had moved me to comment on it to my friends and family before the catastrophe had actually hit its stride. I'd been obsessed with the stupid project, panting after a 4.0, and I'd completely lost sight of the real world outside of my screen, the significance of the situation eclipsed by my desire for a perfect college transcript. And when it had all fallen apart, it had done it so beautifully that from the moment the fences had gone up and they'd handed us ration cards, I'd known that I would never see my family ever, ever again.

Maybe that was why I had clung so desperately to Chloe. She had been the one real tangible link to who I had been before, the girl who had nothing to worry about except her grades and a barista gig at the campus café. Or maybe it had been that Chloe was weak, weaker than me, and by protecting her, I was fooling myself into thinking I was strong. A deluded arithmetic.

Perhaps that was also why I had agreed to tag along to the city. To verify to myself whether that arithmetic had been the case - was I strong because I was stronger than CHloe, or did I really have what it took to survive in this world? For all my posturing to Lori, my personal assurances that I would be fine, considering all I'd managed to do thus far, I was really quite untested. Our escape from the college had been successful, but that was down to RJ's assistance and pure dumb luck. Every one of my victories so far had been bought by someone else, not my own ingenuity. Yet, I wanted to be here, to pay back into the universe all of the boons I'd received so far. Maybe by saving this douchebag, I reasoned, things could be balanced; I could have something in my ledger to show what I was good for - wasn't just some girl. I could be a member of this community, a genuine article, contributing and helping and supporting and doing my bit - again, perhaps a deluded arithmetic.

The van ground to a halt, and we started to shift, gathering our things. "He'd better be okay," Daryl snapped at T-Dog.

"It's my only word on the matter," T-Dog replied. "I told you the geeks can't get at him. The only thing that's gonna get through that door is us."

We were parked on the train tracks near the downtown. Chloe and I had once had plans to take a train trip to Savannah during our senior year. We'd drink sweet tea and wear big hats and fall in love with a new city.

"We walk from here," Glenn said.

And we did, for just about twenty minutes. I fell back into step with Daryl, who was still studiously avoiding my gaze - but not my conversation. "You didn't have to come," he muttered, adjusting his crossbow. "You don't even know Merle."

"No, I don't," I agreed, "but I know you. And you helped me with Chloe, you brought me someplace safe. The least I can do is help you save your brother."

He nodded, started chewing on his thumb again. "Sorry I didn't get there sooner."

I stopped, and so did he, turning back to finally look at me. "That was her choice, Daryl. It was always going to be that way. Even if you'd found us a day earlier and brought us to the quarry, the two of us, sooner or later she would've done the same thing." I glanced down at my boots; by this time, the rest of the group had seen that we'd stopped. "She didn't want to live in this world; I was the one who kept dragging her along, keeping her in it. But that was her choice, and I've got to respect that. Now, it's not by Merle's choice that he's up there, so we've got a chance to help him. So let's go."

We started walking again, this time accompanied by a tense silence. When we came to a fence at the edge of the city, Daryl swiftly cut through it with the bolt-cutters we'd gotten from Dale, and then we had to make a decision. "Merle first or guns?" asked Rick.

"Merle!" Daryl spat. "We ain't even havin' this conversation."

"We _are_ ," Rick countered firmly. He turned to Glenn. "You know the geography. It's your call."

Mercifully, Glenn replied that Merle was closest. "The guns would mean doubling back. Merle first."

Merle was located in the department store where Chloe and I would do our Christmas shopping each year. As we stepped through the doors following a stressful, silent journey from the outskirts of the city, I experienced vivid flashbacks to those cool afternoons, singing along to the carols piped in through the radio, spending way too much money on ourselves and not quite enough on our loved ones. This time, however, the store was dusty and still, except for a walker slowly making her way over to us from the ladies department. "Damn," Daryl said, spotting her and cocking his crossbow, "you are one ugly skank." He fired a shot through her head and then pulled out the bolt. "Let's go."

Despite never having been there before, Daryl led the way up the stairs to the roof. When we reached the narrow staircase and the door beyond, T-Dog ripped open the padlock with the bolt cutters and then Daryl kicked his way through. "Merle!" he shouted into the air as he dashed out. "Merle!"

His brother's name blazed into sobs and howls: "No! No! No, no, no!"

There, under the hot Georgia sun, a trail of dried blood led from the still-locked handcuff, swaying slightly in the wind, to a reddened handsaw lying on the pavement. And not too far from that lay, still clenched in a pain it could no longer feel, a man's severed hand.


	6. Vatos

_**Chapter VI: Vatos**_

One Halloween, my oldest brother bought a fake, bloodied arm from a local party supply store and jammed it in the closed trunk of his car. Then, for a whole month, he'd driven around our town with this stupid gory thing hanging out of his car - driving our mother crazy in the process.

This sight was absolutely nothing like that damned plastic hand. I felt every meal I'd ever consumed rise, burning, to my throat, and I puked right there on the roof. Glenn, despite his own horror, held my hair back as I did and then clapped me gently on the shoulder. "Y'okay?" he asked, when my coughing had finally ceased.

Daryl's initial howling grief had also eased by this point, fading out into pure anger as he turned his crossbow on T-Dog. But Rick, the seasoned policeman, had anticipated this particular development and had already whipped out his gun, an elegant Colt Python. "I won't hesitate," he said, eerily calm considering the situation at hand. "I don't care if every walker in the city hears it."

There was a pause, centuries long, and we all stood there, frozen. One shot would kill Daryl, and the aftermath on the street below might finish the rest of us. Clearly comprehending that Rick was indeed serious in his threat, Daryl lowered his weapon, blinking tearfully. "You got a durag or something?" he asked, directing the query at T-Dog, who fished one from his back pocket.

I was beginning to regret coming along.

It struck me as profoundly discordant to my previous life that I was now standing atop a downtown department store, armed with a knife, accompanied by a motley crew of men who, under any other circumstances in the world, would likely not even know each other - and was now watching one of these men tenderly wrap his brother's amputated hand in a borrowed bandana.

Three months ago, I had been sitting in a Shakespeare lecture, drinking an iced coffee and jotting down notes about the various representations of power demonstrated across his history plays. Two months ago, I had been sitting up until the early hours of the morning in the common room, searching multiple news channels for information about the gradually intensifying crisis. One month ago, I had counted apples and protein bars and watched Chloe sweat and writhe in her sleep.

And now here I was. With my new purpose, my new crisis, and my new leader.

"He must've used a tourniquet," Daryl was saying, placing the bundled-up hand into Glenn's backpack, who had paled at the action. "Maybe his belt. Be much more blood if he didn't."

I scanned the ground, anything to avoid thinking about Merle's hand (so far the only part of him I'd met), bouncing around in Glenn's bag, and it was then that I noticed that the blood trail continued away from the large, industrial pipe to which he had been handcuffed. "Daryl," I said softly.

He looked back at me, his eyes following my pointing finger. The spattering of blood upon concrete led to another door further down the roofline. As a whole, we started to follow it.

Somehow, I ended up walking next to Daryl again. "Good eye," he muttered without looking at me, his gaze focused on his brother's blood. I felt myself glow a little under his praise - being commended on one's eye by a skilled tracker is a high compliment, after all, no matter how cantankerous said tracker may be. He kept his face trained on the ground, even as he held the door open for me to enter the stairwell; it touched me that he did so. I wanted to do something kind for him.

"I'm sure we'll find him." I spoke lowly, and he was distracted; I'm not sure he heard me. But it had needed to be said, there under the hot Georgia sun, while we followed his brother's bloody trail. No one else was offering him comfort of any kind - in the early days, however, that was common. Daryl had not exactly done anything (yet) that warranted care and concern from most of the group. To them, and admittedly to me, he was a tough, indignant, spiteful man with scant in the way of either charm or redeeming virtues. Some were outright afraid of him; others were simply wary. But though we had just watched him carefully wrap up his brother's severed hand, though we had witnessed his grief play out noisily and publically - still no one tried to put a hand on his shoulder, offer an encouraging word, or even somehow express some form of sympathy. Yes, Merle Dixon was a certifiably insane asshole, but he was Daryl's brother. And he didn't deserve to bleed out or be eaten by walkers, so that was what we needed to prevent.

I've never asked Daryl if he heard me that day, and I know he didn't see my hand stretch out behind him, reaching for his shoulder to offer an empathetic squeeze. He would've cringed from my touch, in any event. But I hope he heard me. I really do.

The next level of the building housed some offices, likely for the managers and sales components of the department store below. The units were cramped and a little dusty, but we made sure to check each one, in case Merle had decided to hide out. There was a walker in the largest office at the end of the hall; Daryl got him with the crossbow.

"Had enough in him to take out these two sumbitches," he observed wryly, gesturing to two other dispatched geeks with his boot. "Toughest asshole I ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer, he'd crap out nails."

God, that made me laugh. Right there, in front of two dead-alive corpses, the scent of decomposition rising on the air, and I giggled. Even Rick cracked a small smile. "Any man can pass out from blood loss," he pointed out, as I choked out an apology that Daryl nodded briefly at.

Moving further through the building, we went down another level and entered a fairly large kitchen. Dimly, I recalled taking the elevator up to the seventh floor for lunch with Chloe during one holiday shopping expedition. We'd asked for our orange juice to be served in champagne glasses, much to the amusement of our server, just so that we could feel more grown-up. "Merle!" Daryl shouted, before we had even fully made our way into the room, or at least far enough in to determine whether or not there were walkers inside. That rankled Rick. Testily, he reminded Daryl that we were not alone here. "Screw that," came Daryl's retort. "He could be bleeding out; you said so yourself."

While he and Rick argued in the doorway, and T-Dog and Glenn kept watch behind them, I moved further into the room, approaching the industrial kitchen unit on the far side. Curiously, I noted, the stove was still lit, and there was a man's leather belt sitting on top of it. Blood-spattered pots and pans were ranged alongside it. I flicked off the appliance. "Hey," I called out, bringing all four men to my side as one concerned, intrigued body.

"What's that burned stuff?" Daryl asked, gesturing over my shoulder. Some sort of substance, intermittently pale and charred, spotted the surface of the stove.

Rick leaned closer. "Skin," he replied, and I jumped back, knocking into Daryl as I did. He steadied me gently. "He cauterized the stump."

"Told you he was tough," said Daryl, adjusting the crossbow in his hands again. "Nobody can kill Merle but Merle."

Rick advised him not to take that particular fact on faith, reminding him that his brother had lost a significant amount of blood. "Yeah? Didn't stop him from busting out of this death trap." Daryl's confidence in his elder brother's survival skills was, in one way, endearing. It reminded me of my own brothers, how much I'd looked up to them as a child, even though they were, like Merle, morons. Once, I'd thought they could do anything, achieve anything, fix anything. Then, of course, I had grown up and realized they were vain and impulsive and basically dickheads - but they were mine, and I loved them despite all that. The same was true for Daryl. More so than any of us, he knew just how much of an ass his brother was. He knew he was racist, mean, sexist, and idiotic - but that didn't stop the love. How could it? You spend your entire life literally looking up to someone, letting them become your whole world, and then gradually, reality starts chipping away at that adulatory statue you crafted. Flaws start to appear more obviously; inconsistencies become glaring; you might cut yourself on the rough edges in sore need of polishing. But you still love it, because it's yours; because you've loved it for so long. How could you stop? Loving someone blind you to their shortcomings and certainly didn't excuse any terrible policies they held, but it did, I suppose, lend some sense of hope for redemption.

Daryl started moving through the kitchen, towards the windows on the far side. One of them was completely smashed; big enough for a grown man to crawl through with ease. "He left the building? Why the hell would he do that?" Glenn asked.

"Why wouldn't he?" Daryl was leaning on the sill, looking down at the street below. "He's out there alone as far as he knows, doing what he's got to do. Survivin'." He stood back so that Rick could look, too.

T-Dog just shook his head at the whole scene. "You call that surviving?" he asked as Daryl brushed past him to move back out into the hallway.

"No worse than being handcuffed and left to rot by you sorry pricks." Glenn and T-Dog looked away at his words, though whether it was out of guilt or because they were tired of hearing about it, I couldn't tell. He rounded on Rick. " _You_ couldn't kill him. Ain't so worried about some dumb, dead bastard."

"What about a thousand dead, dumb bastards?" Rick asked. "Different story?"

Daryl fairly spat his response: "Why don't you take a tally? Do what you want. I'm gonna go get him." He turned to leave, heading for the door, but Rick placed a firm hand on his chest, pushing him back and imploring him to wait. "Get your hands off me! You can't stop me!"

"I don't blame you," Rick levelled, "he's family; I get that. I went through hell to find mine. I know exactly how you feel. He can't get that far with that injury."

Daryl's expression changed, and it became obvious that the energy in the room had changed, too. We were no longer four people watching a fifth spin out of control; we were a group, a team, levelling and compromising and acknowledging that we needed to work together. Daryl wasn't out of control; he was scared.

"We could help yo check a few blocks around, but only," Rick continued, "if we keep a level head."

Daryl's blue eyes flickered to mine before he responded. I smiled, softly and slightly. Was he looking to me for approval? Permission? Encouragement? Or did I still have puke on my face? Self-consciously, I wiped at my lips. "I could do that," he conceded, his gaze sliding back to meet Rick's.

"Only if we get those guns first." T-Dog raised his hands in the air - a surrender, a reassurance, a compromise. "I'm not strolling the streets of Atlanta with just my good intentions, okay?"

* * *

We moved downstairs to form a plan. On the very first level, towards the back of the store, we found what may have been a lower-level manager's office. It gave us some natural light to work with, and a good viewpoint on the alley, which for the moment was free of walkers. T-Dog secured the door from the office to the store, motivated to do so based on the still-audible pounding of the dead outside the front entrance.

Exhausted, I collapsed into one of the swivel chairs, took my knife out and started digging the tip into the nearest desk while Glenn and Rick cleared out a workspace on the floor. Daryl, for his part, just leaned against the door leading out into the alleyway. "You good?" I asked, throwing his own question back at him.

Looking up to confirm that it was indeed to him I'd directed the question, the corners of his mouth twitched - a Daryl smile, or damn close to him, I guessed. "What do you think?

I tried to translate: _I'll be fine, thanks for asking._

On the floor, Glenn leaned back on his heels, examining the cleared space in front of him. I had no clue what he needed it for. "Hey, RIley, can you hand me that marker?" he asked.

With it, Glenn began drawing an assortment of squares in uniform lines directly onto the linoleum. He drew four or five on each side of a long, blank, vertical rectangle. T-Dog settled himself down on the floor beside it and even Daryl's interest was piqued. "Is that a map?" I guessed.

Glenn nodded, and then asked me to pick out a few office supplies from the desk I sat at. I selected the first things my fingers brushed: a bulldog clip, an eraser, and a piece of yellow paper that he promptly crumpled when I passed them over. He placed the clip at the corner of one of the squares, at the end of the blank space closest to him. Just to the side of it, he arranged the paper.

"Okay," he said with as much confidence as he could muster. "Here's my plan. This is a map of the area outside, with the tank. This is the corner where Forsyth and Walton meet." Mentally, I tried to orient myself. I'd lived in Atlanta for nearly three years at this point, but my geographic awareness was limited mainly to our campus and a few hot spots in the downtown area. The street names meant nothing to me, really, so I tried to commit the map to memory, hoping that I wouldn't need a quick escape down one of the side streets at all. Ideally, everything would go smoothly.

Yeah, sure. Because that happens all the time in the apocalypse.

"I'm going to get the bag of guns. By myself." Glenn certainly had balls, and I'm sure that's what we were all thinking.

Rick shook his head. "You're not doing this alone."

"Even I think it's a bad idea and I don't even like you much." I shot Daryl a look of disapproval for that remark, though it didn't exactly inspire him to break out into paroxysms of guilt.

"It's a good idea, okay, if you just hear me out." I didn't know Glenn very well, but the others did, and the fact that they paused their protestations and were completely silent as he proceeded with his explanation proved to me that either this was a singular novelty (his taking direction in this way); or that his ideas had already set a precedent for impressiveness. "If we go out there in a group, we're slow, drawing attention. If I'm alone, I can move fast."

He gestured to the map he'd drawn, adjusting the ball of paper so that it sat a bare inch north of the clip. "Look," he said, pointing to the clip first, "that's the tank. Five blocks from where we are now." He indicated the paper next. "That's the bag of guns. Here's the alley I dragged you into when we first met" - this was directed at Rick - "That's where Daryl and I will go."

Rick nodded, but Daryl, in typical Daryl fashion, questioned it. "Why me?"

"Your crossbow is quieter than his gun," Glenn replied, nodding his head towards Rick.

I glanced over at Daryl then, fully anticipating some snarky remark, perhaps even some crude phallic comparison of the crossbow and the Colt, but all I caught a glimpse of was the smallest, briefest, and most welcome of smiles. He had construed Glenn's words as bestowment of infinitesimal praise. That an offhand, entirely logical assessment of the merits of available weaponry could generate such a relatively warm response (particularly coming from someone as taciturn and closed-off as Daryl) hinted to me that he was not often in receipt of genuine praise, great or small.

"You got us elsewhere?" Rick asked, examining the map.

"You and T-Dog, right." Glenn pointed further down the street. "You'll be in this alley here."

Rick was bemused. "Two blocks away? Why?"

"I may not be able to come back the same way. Walkers might cut me off. If that happens, I won't go back to Daryl." Glenn traced his alternate route for the group. "I'll go forward instead, all the way around to that alley where you guys are. Whichever direction I go, I got you in both places to cover me. Afterwards, we'll all meet back here." He indicated a position on the map near to what I surmised was the office we were currently sitting in.

Glenn's plan was, to be perfectly honest, as brilliant as we could hope for in our current situation. It was likely there would be hiccups - realistically, the only thing we could fully count on was something going wrong. But he had accounted for as many of those hiccups as he could, and there was a strong chance we could both succeed and survive. There was just one question left.

"What about me?" Cutting through the awed silence that Glenn had left behind, my voice sounded young and small. I wanted to be a part of this; I had come this far.

Judging from his expression, Glenn had not counted me as part of his original plan. Whether this was because of my sex or my age, I couldn't be sure. But Andrea and Jacqui had been a part of the original supply group, hadn't they? Both women were resilient and capable, and this wasn't a sexist group I had stumbled into, I knew that. Then it must be my age. They were worried about the stupid twenty-one year old trying to show off and getting herself or one of them killed.

I let my words hang there, though, pregnant with hope and willing the best of each of the men who had brought me along so far. They wouldn't leave me sitting there, idle, awaiting their valiant returns - would they?

Rick and T-Dog exchanged an inscrutable look, one I couldn't quite translate. Glenn trained his eyes on the map, adjusting the position of his little faux tank in a blatant attempt to avoid my face.

"You come with me."

Daryl's expression was charged, determined. Maybe he said that so I could avoid rejection by the rest of the group (it was obvious that Officer Friendly was about to let me down gently), or maybe he did it because he sincerely wanted me to come with him. I'm not sure, and I really don't care. All I felt in the moment was gratitude.

Rick opened his mouth to protest and T-Dog looked over at me with an expression that somehow reminded me of a lifeboat: I knew that if I needed him to, he would get me out of this.

But I didn't want to get out of it. I wanted to participate, to take action. We needed those guns, and I wanted to be a part of the effort to obtain them. Sure, most of my motivation was ego, competitiveness. It always had been. I was one of those people who couldn't desire the best for themselves unless they knew they'd be getting or doing better than someone else. I took a self-indulgent kind of pride in the fact that I was the only woman on this expedition; liked the fact that Amy, a few years my senior and in much the same boat as I (in that she had no children depending on her at camp and was fairly fit), stayed at home while I was here, participating, doing my part.

It's not a side I like about myself, but it is a part of me, I guess. It got me through field hockey and won me several academic scholarships. It helped me hold my own in a family of overachievers. I genuinely enjoyed being better than others, and routinely sought out opportunities to demonstrate it. When I crawled into that cube van with the rest of the mission group, a big part of me was doing it for Daryl, because he'd saved my life and had been so kind to my poor Chloe. But another part of me saw the Atlanta mission as a chance to stroke my own ego.

Like I said, I'm not exactly proud of that side of myself.

When Daryl so firmly established that I would accompany him and Glenn, I was mildly thrilled. I was beginning to suspect as well that, grade school or not, I did like Daryl Dixon, or was at least drawn to him in a different way than I had connected with any other member of the group. Perhaps it was that I'd met people like _them_ before - I knew kind and strong women like Lori, Carol, Andrea, and Jacqui; I'd met men who were equal parts swagger and sweetness, like Rick and T-Dog; dated affable boys like Glenn. But I'd never, ever encountered any one in my life quite like Daryl Dixon, and the newness of the experience, combined with the obvious physical attraction that was sending funny little flurries through my stomach, was quite interesting.

Yes, yes - physical attraction. The man was fit, after all, and toned, probably from his outdoorsy hobbies. His face wasn't classically handsome, but it was different: his expressions guarded, his features quick and rugged.

Rick started, "Are you su - " but Daryl cut him off by asking Glenn what he had done for employment before all of this ("this" being the end of the civilized world). Glenn then informed us that he had delivered pizzas for a nearby restaurant, leaving us all to ponder what great survival skills and capabilities had been laying dormant or disguised under the cover of our previous, workaday lives.

* * *

Outside, the morning was waning, though the sun still blazed overhead. We had been gone from the quarry at least two hours; we should probably be heading back in at least six more. I didn't like the prospect of navigating the outskirts of the city in the dark, trying to find the van while dodging the dead we could scarcely see coming.

In order to get to our alleyway, Daryl, Glenn, and I needed to cross over a few buildings. We did this through fire escapes, sneaking across one alleyway, and finally, by climbing down an emergency ladder to the street below. Walkers were still crowding the main street, so we needed to avoid that if we even remotely desired a shot at grabbing the gun bag. The huge throng of geeks that Rick had encountered just yesterday were still milling around whatever remained of the horse he'd ridden in on.

The alleyway Glenn had chosen for us was in between a few restaurants and cafés, so the place was crammed with dumpsters and littered with garbage bags. We scuttled to the end of the passage, and the three of us crouched behind a tall green bin that smelled, frankly, worse than the walkers. Daryl cocked his crossbow and we examined the fence at the end of the way. Just beyond that and slightly to the left, out of our sight, was the bag of guns - we hoped.

I situated myself in between the two men. My role in this portion of the plan was not exactly well thought out. Glenn hadn't really assigned much a firm responsibility on my part, and Daryl had merely claimed my presence, not my participation. Nevertheless, I was determined to be supportive, in some way, shape, or form. I wasn't going to let them accuse me of being a burden.

Following Glenn's lead, we moved further along the alleyway, watching a few walkers mill around and pass us by without noticing. Standing slightly to my side, Daryl stood his crossbow on the ground and pulled the bow string straight up and tight. "You got some balls for a Chinaman," he remarked, nodding towards Glenn.

"I'm Korean," Glenn retorted, without looking back at us and beginning to approach the fence. I moved closer to the wall, trying to get out of Daryl's way and yet ensuring I was poised in a running start, so that if Glenn did need me to burst out on to the street for assistance, it would take me a split second to do so. I also removed my knife from my waistband. Brilliant planning, really.

"Whatever." Daryl nocked a bolt onto his bow.

Glenn dashed out into the street and veered left, heading up towards the point he'd indicated on the map by an arbitrary, stupid piece of yellow paper. That paper held immense promise for all of us here in the city, and for the rest of our people back at the quarry. Once again, I was struck by an intense feeling along the lines of, " _Seriously,_ this _is my life now? Not too long ago, I was only worried about my grades, now there's a guy with a crossbow sitting behind me and a pizza boy determining the fate of my entire world based on how fast he can run_."

"Get down, girl," Daryl hissed, and then gently pushed me further down so that I was practically sitting on the ground. "Don't want any of them walkers to see us."

I leaned back against the brick wall. "Thanks for letting me come."

He continued to stare out at the alleyway, resolutely still and focused. "You came this far," he muttered. "Didn't seem fair to leave you behind now." He tensed; I watched the muscles in his arms immediately engage and tauten, and then he poised the crossbow high in the air, whirling around a split second later to stand, facing the alley behind us.

I stood too, completely oblivious to his particular development. His hearing was better than mine, though, his instincts sharper, so it didn't particularly surprise me to see that while we had been crouched down there waiting for Glenn, a young man, perhaps my age, had approached.

Daryl trained the crossbow at the man, stepping out quickly to get a better shot. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," the stranger shouted, "don't shoot me! What do you want?"

"I"m looking for my brother," Daryl growled, glaring at the boy down the length of his bow. "He's hurt real bad. You seen him?"

Visibly panicked, the kid looked beyond me to the street and began to shout in Spanish. It took me a moment to reach back into the depths of my meagre high school gleanings and translate his cries as a call for help. " _Ayúdame!_ " He repeated the plea several times.

"Shut up!" Daryl snapped. "You're gonna bring the geeks down on us. "Answer me."

For my part, I was frozen where I stood. I really didn't think Daryl was going to shoot this kid, but he really needed to shut the hell up. "Answer me!" Daryl said again, far more forcefully.

Again and again went the same exchange, until, stupidly, it occurred to me that he wasn't asking Daryl and I for help - he was calling for someone else. Under these conditions, the only time you shout for assistance is when you _know_ someone is nearby to hear you, to give you aid before the walkers descend. "Daryl," I said, willing him to understand my panicked, unspoken train of thought, but it had already him, too, so naturally, he smacked the kid in the face with the crossbow.

The boy hit the ground, flat on his back, and Daryl crouched over his face, attempting to cover the kid's mouth. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion. I stood next to the dumpster, gripping my now-slippery knife in one hand and bracing myself against the brick wall with the other. I watched as Daryl tried to keep the kid quiet, and realized, too late, that I had no fucking instincts here. Should I keep one hand over the kid's mouth? Should I go check on Glenn? Should I watch out for walkers? When it came down to it, I thought bitterly, I was an idiot. Sure, I had a knife, but I had no true skill with it - I could slam it into a walker's pulpy cranium, but other than that, it might as well have been a magic wand, for all the good it did me.

I don't know what made me turn around in that instant, but I did, to face two men who had sprinted up the alleyway towards us from the main street beyond. One shoved me back against the wall and the knife clattered out of my hand. Dimly, I thought about warning Daryl. That would be a nice thing to do, wouldn't it? I called his name, but too late.

They tackled him, pulling him away from the boy and slamming his body back down on the concrete. The same one who had pushed me had a pipe in his hand; he brought it down on Daryl's back. The other, stouter but no less powerful than his companion, commenced to kicking him heartily in the side. I watched with a disturbing sense of detachment, as though they were not actually beating the shit out of my friend, as though Daryl's grunts of pain were a grand, lame joke. I had no clue what to do.

Glenn suddenly appeared, gun bag in hand, and, completely out of my own cognitive control, I began to walk towards him. Yes, Glenn and I would just take a walk, where I couldn't see Daryl bruised and bloody, we'd just take a nice stroll down the street...hadn't there been a cool coffee shop somewhere along this street? With cherry danishes the size of a baby's head?

I reached Glenn's side after what felt like years apart, grasping at his arm to tell him about the danishes, but then I felt something wrench me back. What was that?

"That's it, that's the bag, _vato_."

The men had descended upon us, grabbing at the bag in Glenn's hand and pushing him to the ground. The thinner man gripped me around the waist and held me fast against him, bringing the pipe down once on Glenn's back. With his other hand, he reached down and started to grab at Glenn, until his companion shrieked. I heard the bolt, didn't see it right away. It seemed to whistle down the length of the alley and when it landed in the other man's ass and curried a scream, I could've laughed out loud if I wasn't busy pissing my pants in fear. _Take the bag, leave us_ , I wanted to plead.

One hand grabbing at his behind, the injured man took me from the other - they passed me between them as though I wasn't a five-foot-eight former field hockey forward. Like I was a doll, a little girl. A biddable child. Swearing in my ear, he pulled me away from the alley and through the gate. A car, something white and low, had careened to a halt in front of the opening, and he wrenched open the backseat door and shoved me inside. Glenn was screaming at Daryl, and that's when I realized that I didn't want this. I didn't want to be put in this car, I wanted to be back there wit Daryl and Glenn, the bag of guns, and the feeling of a job well done. Panic bubbled up inside of me and erupted from my throat as I howled Daryl's name, over and over and over again, just in case he hadn't heard me the first time.

They piled Glenn in next to me, and the guy with the pipe slid in after him. Through the rear window I watched as walkers headed towards us, as though they couldn't bear to see us go, to say goodbye.

* * *

"You want water?"

I shook my head. "I want you to let me go. Both of us."

In another life, the man kneeling in front of me now was probably a pretty nice guy. He had a kind face, I thought, despite the fact that he had had both of my hands bound with duct tape and had then locked me in this closet for an hour. He appeared to be in his thirties; slim, Hispanic, and under any other circumstances, I probably would've categorized him under the heading of "EXTREMELY good-looking." But not today. He clucked his tongue. "No can do, _bebita_. Not right now. Your friends took something that belongs to me, so until they very nicely offer to give it back, you and your skinny boy there will be trespassing on our hospitality." He smiled. "Now, I'm going to ask you one more time, do you want a drink of water? It's getting stuffy in here, and I don't want you passing out on me."

"I don't want shit from you!"

"Little kitty's got claws!" he crowed, standing. "I like that. I've always liked a girl with spunk. Shit wasn't on the menu, honey - we got better cooks than that."

The door behind him swung open, and I saw another man (from my vantage point looking at least seven feet tall), stand in the frame. "G, they need you out there, man," he said. "We got visitors." His eyes flickered down to mine, and he grinned. "Looks like your boys ain't leaving you behind after all, _mija_."

God, the nicknames with these people.

"Well," said G evenly, looking down at me, "your friends have arrived. We've got to get you looking presentable and persuasive."

I soon realized that "presentable" meant additional duct tape being stretched over my mouth and "persuasive" called for a black pillowcase to be shimmied over my head. Yeah, sure - completely high fashion. Cinderella was _finally_ going to the ball.

My hands still bound behind my back, I was led out of the closet, down a corridor of about thirty paces, and then right around a corner. I stumbled here and there, but my captor was surprisingly gentle, quietly offering me advance warnings when he was going to turn or stop.

When we did stop for good, he turned me around slightly, to the left, and then eased me onto a chair. "You sit tight here, _chica_ , it's all going to alright. You don't make a move or a sound, and nobody gets hurt." I felt enclosed, suddenly, but not by doors. There were at least three or four people standing in close proximity to my chair, I could tell by the breathing - brushing up against my knees and looming over me. And yet I didn't feel threatened. There was tension on the air, certainly, but I didn't think I was about to be hurt.

Or so I hoped.

Doors, definitely more than one, creaked open nearby and the heat of the afternoon came rolling into the space, warming my bare arms. "You okay, little man?" I recognized G's voice, the man who had offered me water and who, I gathered, was the leader of this group. He had obviously stepped outside; his voice was close, but not right in front of me. Maybe a few yards away.

"They're gonna cut off my feet, _carnal_." This voice sounded familiar, too - the kid from the alley?

"Cops do that?" That was G again.

"Not him," the kid replied. "This redneck _puto_ here. He cut off some dude's hand, man. He showed it to me."

Three guesses who the kid was talking about.

"Shut up." I'd never been so delighted to hear someone's voice as I was then. Daryl, at least, was okay.

A new voice joined the conversation. "Hey, that's that _vato_ right there, homes. He shot me in the ass with an arrow. What's up, homes, huh?" I heard the metallic click of a gun, and I tensed.

"Chill, _ese_ , chill." G had a radio voice, I thought inanely and involuntarily. I could just hear him smoothly announcing this week's top ten songs; a sale at the mall; a fundraiser at a local church. It was rich and soothing, almost. Good for a hostage negotiator, too, handily enough. "This true? He wants Miguelito's feet? That's pretty sick, man."

"We were hoping more for a calm discussion." Rick sure did love the prospect of a "calm discussion," though to be honest, he had yet to really see one. Something about the dead walking around seems to send calm right out of the window for most people.

G snorted. "That hillbilly jumps Felipe's little cousin, beats on him, threatens to cut off his feet, Felipe gets an arrow in the ass and you want a calm discussion? You fascinate me."

"Heat of the moment," Rick countered. "Mistakes were made on both sides."

"Who is that dude to you, anyway? You don't look related."

"He's one of our group, more or less." Rick's generosity really did know no bounds. "I'm sure you have a few like him."

I could almost see Daryl seething with insult and impatience. "You got my brother in there?" he snapped.

"Sorry," G replied. "We're fresh out of white boys. But I've got a girl. Pretty little mama. And I've got an Asian dude. You interested?"

Thankfully, Daryl avoided entering the negotiation stage and let Rick proceed. "I have one of yours, you have some of mine, taken without reason. Seems like an even trade."

G clucked his tongue again. "Don't sound even to me. You got just one, but I've got two of yours."

"G, come on, man," the kid protested.

But G just ignored him. "My people got attacked. Where's the compensation for their pain and suffering? More to the point" - he sniffed - "where's my bag of guns?"

"Guns?" Good plan, Rick, play dumb.

"The bag Miguel saw in the street. The bag Felipe and Jorge were going back to get. That bag of guns."

"You're mistaken."

"I don't think so."

"About it being yours." Rick's voice was remarkably calm. Confident. "It's my bag of guns."

"The bag," G argued, "was in the street. Anybody could come around and say it was theirs. I'm supposed to take your word? What's to stop my people from unloading on you right here and now and I take what's mine?"

"You could do that. Or not."

There was a pause, an empty moment. I heard some scuffling nearby, and then G made some sort of verbal signal, probably a "Hey" or a "Now" and the pillowcase was pulled from my face; I was almost picked up by one of the men in front of me and was led out into some sort of courtyard.

G, from the closet, was standing in front of Daryl, Rick, and the kid from the alley. Rick had a shotgun aimed at G and, naturally, Daryl's crossbow was fully engaged. I couldn't speak for the duct tape on my mouth; couldn't even move on my own. The man who held me walked me to roughly G's side, and then we stopped.

"I've just been getting to know this sweet little _bebita_ here," G drawled, inclining his head towards me. "She's tough; I can see why you brought her along. She belong to one of you?"

I mumbed a profanity against the tape. Like hell if I "belonged" to anyone.

"Come on," G smiled widely and gestured to Daryl. "She yours, brother? She your baby girl? Hell, you're old enough to be her daddy, aren't you?" G took a step closer when Daryl refused to respond, reaching out to tuck a few strands of hair behind my hair. "You see, I've enjoyed spending time with her, and the fact that none of you seem to be claiming her makes me think she'll be better off here, where real men can protect her. What kind of a guy would I be if I let her go back with you? Felipe told me that she was just sitting there in the alley, your man here wasn't too bothered about her during the fight. I just think, _gracias a Dios_ some real men came by to help her."

I swore again, but G just chuckled. "Hmm, I said it before, honey, you've got spunk." He touched my shoulder briefly and then gestured to roof behind us. I couldn't see, couldn't turn around, but based upon the expressions on Rick and Daryl's faces, I guessed it was bad, and that it had something to do with Glenn.

"I see two options," G continued, turning back around to place a hand gently on my bound wrists behind me. The other man holding me let me go and stepped back. "You come back with Miguel and my bag of guns, everybody walks. Including Missy here. Or you come back locked and loaded, we'll see which side spills more blood."

He turned with me, guiding me back towards the double doors from which we had just emerged. As we walked and I weighed the logistics of struggling, I heard Daryl's shout, angry and red: "You touch her, I'll cut all y'alls hands off. You hear me, you son of a bitch? You keep your hands off her!"

* * *

This time, I accepted the glass of water.

A young woman with a sweet face and soft hands offered it to me, after inviting me to sit in a flowered chair in what once had been the multipurpose room of the nursing home I was being held gently captive in. She poured me the water and then offered me a chocolate chip cookie. "I can put some lotion on your wrists, if you want? It'll help with the redness."

And she did. Some floral scented, but definitely drug-store brand - not Chloe's fancy orange blossom or lavender shit. But it felt so good to have something other than that damn duct tape on my skin that I found myself closing my eyes and leaning back in the chair, I was almost asleep…

"Riley!"

I opened my eyes. "Glenn!"

Maybe I had fallen asleep; the girl was gone, my wrists were dry, and my water glass was half-empty on the table next to my chair. Glenn practically lifted me out of the chair in an effort to embrace me. "Are you okay? They didn't hurt you?" He took a step back and then scanned me up and down. "They didn't...uh, they didn't…"

"No." I shook my head firmly. "They gave me a cookie. You?"

"Took me up on the roof to scare the shit out of me," he explained. "But other than that, nothing."

"Glenn," I said, looking around the room, which was filled with soft chairs and elderly people, some quietly reading, others dozing, a few even chatting, and a knot in the far right corner playing a card game. "Where are we?"

It was a nursing home, he explained, confirming my suspicions. G, or Guillermo, ran it with a larger group of men. They called themselves the _Vatos_ , and they operated under a very basic code: to provide for and protect the elderly people left behind when the city fell.

"No wonder they wanted the guns," I muttered, looking around at the large number of people. "This is a lot to protect, especially on supply runs."

Glenn agreed. "I don't think they're exactly all that terrible, you know?"

Worrying my lip, I gripped his arm as a frightening thought occurred to me - our friends didn't know that the Vatos weren't exactly all that terrible. "Do you think Rick and the others will get hurt, if they come back? They said something about being locked and loaded." I tried to imagine how far G would go to protect these people, and what that would mean for _my_ people.

Before Glenn could answer, however, a commotion erupted at the far side of the room. An elderly black man was breathing heavily in his armchair, clutching at his chest slightly, his face contorted in abject panic. A couple of people nearby crowded around him, and Glenn and I approached as well.

"Is he okay?" Glenn asked a man standing nearby, who shook his head.

It looked like an asthma attack, I thought, or even a heart attack. The way he was scrabbling at his own chest indicated the former rather than the latter, but regardless, I personally had no clue how to help him. "Where's his medicine?" a young woman asked shrilly.

I felt a tugging on my t-shirt, and looked down to see my own great-grandmother in miniature. She had to be ninety if she was a day, but with the sweetest face. I knew at once that if this woman asked me to jump off a bridge, I'd probably do it. " _Mija_ , come with me, please," she said, and slipped her hand in mine.

Without even questioning it or consulting Glenn, I followed this little old woman down the hallway, across a courtyard, and through what seemed to be a garage. As we walked, she explained to me that Mr. Gilbert (the man in the chair) was having an asthma attack, and that his medicine couldn't be found. "Felipe will know what to do," she said as we rounded another corner and headed towards another garage. "Felipe!" she called out as we entered. "Felipe!"

I like to think of myself as a fairly adept writer - after, I was studying to become a journalists. I know I have tendencies towards the wordy and pedantic, but I'm usually quite capable of turning a phrase, succinctly summing up important details in a few witty and informative lines. I used to dash off essays in a single night. But in no way, shape, or form, do I find myself capable of doing descriptive justice to the scene that awaited this sweet old woman and I as we made our way towards Felipe in the dingy, dusty garage I immediately recognized as the last I'd glimpsed before the black pillowcase was slipped back over my head a few hours ago. So, in full acknowledgement of my shortcomings here, I'll just provide the facts.

The garage was filled with approximately twenty men, most of them Vatos, all of them pointing some form of weaponry at each other. Guillermo stood, cool and collected, in the centre of the whole group, the barrel of Rick Grimes' shotgun nearly kissing his forehead. I scanned the room for familiar faces, and my eyes met T-Dog's. Imperceptibly, he nodded. He had me.

As the old woman made her way through the crowd, gently tugging me along behind her, any tension that had existed there before our arrival simply dissipated, usurped by tangible awkwardness, uncertainty.

" _Abuela_ , go back with the others...now." Felipe, obviously the woman's grandson, was the stouter man from the alleyway, the one Daryl had shot in the ass. He lowered his gun and turned to his grandmother.

" _Abuela_ , listen to your _mijo_ , okay?" Guillermo didn't take his eyes off of Rick, but his voice wasn't unkind. "This is not the place for you right now."

Still holding onto my hand, Abuela looked imploringly up at Felipe. "Mr. Gilbert is having trouble breathing. He needs his asthma stuff. Carlitos didn't find it. He needs his medicine."

"Get that old lady out of the line of fire!" Daryl yelled, tension snapping taut. "The girl, too!"

Guillermo barked an order at Felipe to go take care of the issue, and to take his grandmother with him. " _¡Abuela_! _Ven conmigo por favor_." Felipe tried to lead us away, taking his grandmother lovingly, if urgently, by the arm. But Abuela had finally assessed the entire situation, looking from T-Dog to Daryl to Rick.

"Who are these men?" she asked, starting to step towards Rick, leading me along. Felipe repeated his request for her to come with him, but she ignored him. "Don't you take him," she said to Rick, looking him square in the eye.

Rick bore of a look of utter bewilderment; textbook confusion. "Ma'am?"

"Felipe is a good boy," Abuela continued, gesturing back towards her grandson, who was still trying to chivvy her along. "He has his troubles but he pulls himself together. We need him here."

"Ma'am," said Rick softly, kindly. "I'm not here to arrest your grandson."

"Then what do you want him for?"

Rick's eyes glanced towards mine; I offered him a small smile to let him know I was fine. "He's...helping us find a missing person. Fella named Glenn."

A flash of discontent - wasn't I a missing person, too? And then, like a slap in my stupid face, I remembered that they now knew where _I_ was.

Abuela grinned, realization dawning upon her face. The Asian boy? He's with Mr. Gilbert. Come, come, I'll show you." She dropped my hand and took Rick's instead, leading him along. "You too, _mija_. He needs his medicine."

She started to weave Rick through the vast throng of Vatos as Guillermo reluctantly ordered his group to let them pass. I allowed her and Rick to file away in front of me, hanging back to connect with T-Dog and Daryl. The former gave me a quick once over and a questioning look. I smiled and nodded.

The latter barely looked at me.

"You pissed at me or something?" I asked him quietly, as we made our way through the first courtyard. Dary only offered me a grunt in return. I was taken aback; after his demonstration during the earlier stand-down, I had assumed that he was concerned only, worried about my safety. But his silence now seemed tinted with something far more inflammatory than mere worry; I could tell he was angry, but whether that was directed at me or the Vatos, I couldn't tell. I decided to try a more direct approach: I touched his arm, and he turned to face me; we lost our place in the group. "Hey. Look at me. Please." When he did, I wished I hadn't asked him to. He _was_ angry. At me. The last time I'd seen him with this look in his eye had been earlier that morning, when Rick had broken the news about Merle to him.

"You're real fucking stupid, you know that?" he spat. "You ain't ready for this shit, girl - you almost died today, almost got Glenn killed too, running over to him like that. You're a stupid little kid, you don't belong out here and I'm an idiot for thinking you could hold your shit." He was getting more and more worked up by the second; his eyes a gathering storm as his face got closer and closer to mine, but the intimacy was unwanted. I could feel his breath, hot on my cheeks, as he struck out his last word on the matter: "And don't be touching me or coming on to me like that, you got it? I ain't your boyfriend, ain't here to protect you, make sure you don't die. Go after Glenn or Shane if you want that crap."

He stalked off, catching up to Rick and Abuela at the head of the line.

I stood, staring at the brick wall. I was mortified, hurt, pissed, guilty - all those things, tumbling around inside my brain and turning my cheeks bright red. I'd been rejected before, loads of times. I'd dealt with my emotional baggage, cried, bitched about the people involved to Chloe, and then moved on with my life. But this felt different - this wasn't some ex-boyfriend making a snide comment about my inability to properly prioritize my social life, or some bitch of a lab partner calling me out on my Type-A personality and related demands.

No, this was a new world, and I'd hoped I would be better in it. I knew I'd messed up by freezing in that alleyway, but had I really endangered Glenn by my inaction? _That_ brought me up short. And Daryl's scathing description of me coming on to him was humiliating. _Was_ I? Certainly I was drawn to him, attracted to him, but I hadn't exactly thrown myself at him daily since we'd met. Touching his arm had simply been my way of firmly getting his attention. It hadn't even been intended as remotely alluring.

None of the men who filed by looked at me, avoiding my gaze, because I knew they'd seen and heard Daryl's outburst. In a daze, I followed the stragglers through to the multipurpose room, where the group of concerned community members gathered around Mr. Gilbert's chair had increased. Felipe began administering asthma medication to the man while the rest of just stood by. I studiously avoided Daryl's eye.

"All right, all right," Felipe said, soothingly. "Nice and easy. Just breathe. Just breathe. Just let it out, just breathe. Just relax."

Rick was looking around, trying to interpret the scene before him. "What the hell is this?" he asked Glenn, who very calmly turned to look at us all, appearing the very picture of health.

"An asthma attack," Glenn offered helpfully. "Couldn't get his breath all of a sudden." He smiled at T-Dog, who had approached as well, incredulous.

"I thought you were being eaten by dogs, man," T-Dog said accusingly. We both followed Glenn's eyes over to a tiny dog bed near Mr. Gilbert's chair, currently being occupied by three Chihuahuas who, if at any point in time had possessed any canine bloodlust in their genetics, had long since worked out their anger management issues.

If I wasn't still upset over what Daryl had said, I would've laughed.

"Could I have a word with you?" Rick motioned to Guillermo. "You're the dumbest son of a bitch I've ever met. We walked in there ready to kill every last one of you."

Guillermo's face was smooth - unaffected, determined. "Well, I'm glad it didn't go down that way."

"If it had, that blood would be on my hands." Rick's voice was positively biting.

"Mine too," Guillermo retorted. "We'd have fought back. Wouldn't be the first time we've had to. Protect the food, the medicine...what's left of it. These people" - and here, he gestured around the room - "the old ones...the staff took off, just left 'em here to die. Me and Felipe were the only ones who stayed."

"What are you, doctors?"

Guillermo offered a rueful smile. "Felipe's a nurse...a special care provider. Me, I'm the custodian."

Rick nodded, scanned the remainder of the Vatos. "What about the rest of your crew?"

"The Vatos trickle in to check on their parents, their grandparents," Guillermo sighed. "They see how things are and most decide to stay. It's a good thing, too. We need the muscle. The people we've encountered since things fell apart - the worst kind...plunderers, the kind that take by force." His words sent a chill down my spine, but not as much as Rick's response did.

"That's not who we are."

 _We_. Our group, our community, our merry little band of survivors. Eking out an existence back at the quarry: sharing, compromising, electing, following, agreeing, debating, aiding, pooling our resources and our abilities. Teaching. We were a group, we had an identity. We weren't raiders or murderers or plunderers. We were good people, brought together by the worst imaginable circumstances, shit that defied imagination. I was a good person. I wasn't a completely skilled person, I'll grant you that, and I wasn't wholly courageous, but I was a good person. And I'd tried, damn it, I'd tried!

Yes, I was cocky and bold, coming out here with nothing but a knife and my ego. Yes, I'd overplayed my hand and frozen in fear when I saw Daryl being beaten - but I had been there. I was doing my best, and these days, that's all I could do.

"These people," Guillermo was saying, "they all look to me now. I don't even know why."

Smiling, Rick assured him it was simply "because they can." That was how essential it was with Rick Grimes: we looked to him and followed him because he didn't let us down. He was brave and wise, yes, but he was also reliable. That, more than anything else, defines a good leader, in my book. Just be there, consistently; listen to your people; follow through when they need you most. Not every other day, not when it suits you - every single day.

* * *

"Hold up a minute." I grabbed Daryl's arm and forced him to turn around. T-Dog, Glenn, and Rick kept on walking, discussing the deal between our group and the Vatos that Rick had just peacefully brokered. I think we all felt a mixture of relief and pride that it had been handled this well - that our first real interaction with another established group had ended positively.

But I was empowered and angry now, not embarrassed, and Daryl Dixon needed a piece of my mind. "First of all, I'm sorry that I just stood there and watched you get the shit beaten out of you. My brain hadn't caught up with the situation, and I just...well, I froze." A furtive glance upwards told me he was listening - once again avoiding my eye, but he hadn't yet moved away. "I'm sorry, Daryl. And I'm sorry that I didn't do more to help Glenn. I let you both down, and I need to apologize for that. I'll tell him, too. But you've gotta understand, I have like, zero preparation for this. I was a student five minutes ago! I'm not like you; I don't know what to do with this knife other than put it between a walker's eyes."

I paused for a breath; he started chewing on his thumb. By this point, Rick had realized we'd fallen behind. He turned with a look of mingled curiosity and concern. I decided I needed to speed verbal self-flagellation up just a smidge. "I'm smart, though, damn smart. I can learn how to handle my shit in this world. I'm not a stupid little kid, I can learn. I'm smart, I'm fast, I'm strong, and I _will_ be an asset, not a liability. I promise. You got that?"

He nodded, and finally met my gaze. "Yeah."

"And," I said, as Rick got closer, "as for me looking for a boyfriend, all you guys are old as shit, so you can stop fucking flattering yourself."

Rick kept in line with me as we walked towards the outskirts of the city. "Everything okay?" he asked quietly.

"Now it is," I joked, stepping awkwardly over a chunk of broken concrete. I recalled avoiding that the first time through, earlier in the day; we must be getting closer to the van. "Thanks for all that."

"It's what we've got to do," he replied, still in that same low tone. "We can't just survive; we've gotta live, too, you know?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "I know."

Up ahead, T-Dog and Glenn had paused to wait for us. "Admit it," said Glenn, grinning widely, "you only came back to Atlanta for the hat."

"Don't tell anybody." Rick did look even more authoritative with the wide-brimmed sheriff's hat sitting atop his head. I wondered, inanely, if Guillermo would've taken him as seriously without it.

"You've given away half our guns and ammo." Daryl had caught up.

Exasperatedly, Rick argued that he had given away _less_ than half. "For what?" Daryl snapped. "Bunch of old farts who are gonna die off momentarily anyhow? Seriously, how long do you think they got?"

We were coming closer to the fence. "How long do any of us?" Rick asked.

Any philosophical discussion that had been about to erupt was prematurely quelled by our collective realization that our cube van was not where we had left it. Nowhere in sight, to be precise.

"Oh, my God," said Glenn.

"Where the hell's our van?" Daryl looked up and down the street where we'd left it, as though it had just rolled north or south of its own accord.

"We left it right there," Glenn said, unnecessarily, anxiously gripping the beak of his ballcap with both hands. "Who would take it?"

"Merle." Rick's voice was short, clipped, enraged.

Daryl looked at us warily. "He's gonna be bringing some vengeance back to camp." He was speaking from experience.

Rick swore, kicked at the ground. "Shit. Let's go, then."

We adjusted our new weapons on our backs, preparing for the longest run of our lives. The light was fading fast, but I estimated we could be back at the quarry within an hour and a half, if we kept up a fairly steady pace. Luckily, all those trips up and down the six floors back at Jasper Hall had managed to keep me in good shape during the occupation and outbreak. I definitely felt up it; knowing that an angry brute was about to descend upon my new group was also decidedly motivating.

"Ready?" Glenn asked me; Rick had already set off, and T-Dog wasn't far behind him. I nodded, muttering something about checking my boots, and then he was off too, leaving Daryl and I alone.

I knelt to ensure my socks were tucked securely into both boots, and hoped to God above they would hold up and protect my ankles. I had no interest in hanging out by the side of a darkened road waiting for the guys to realize I'd fallen behind.

"Hey." Ah, that familiar growl. I glanced up; Daryl was holding out my knife, the one I'd dropped in the alley, offering it handle out.

Smiling slightly, I accepted it and stood. "Thanks."

He bit his bottom lip. If anyone ever wanted lessons on striking that oh-so-subtle balance between endearing and threatening, Daryl Dixon could teach them a few things. "Glad you're back."

* * *

We came back to screams and grief. We fought together for hours, it seemed, though the thing was done in under twenty minutes. Rising up as one solid body of intent, we flung everything we had against the dead, our greatest enemy. I fought with my knife and lost count after three; everything blurred together until my last, which died for a second time by the light of the fire. Sweat streamed from my brow and I rolled over in the new, shocked quiet to face the moon, the sky, the stars, and I tried to forget.

* * *

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	7. Wildfire

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 _ **Chapter VII: Wildfire**_

A bloodsoaked dawn. Our peaceful camp, our refuge from a new, terrifying reality - devastated. The walkers that had attacked had seemingly come out of nowhere, crawling from the depths of the forest and ravaging any semblance of safety we had ever been so incautious to assume we possessed.

Ed was gone. I didn't shed any tears over that. A bully and an abuser, his death meant nothing but freedom for his wife and daughter.

Amy was gone. She lay, broken and silent, near the centre of the camp, the hot sun blazing down on her body. Andrea wouldn't leave her side, draping a pretty new necklace around her bloody neck and sobbing quietly as she said her long, heartbroken goodbye.

There were others, too. People I hadn't yet properly met. When the walkers came, they did so with an animal kind of fury, and they came in the dark. Many of the quarry survivors were sitting around the campfires, joking and talking and sharing food - as they did every night. Amy had been in the RV; Ed in his tent, recuperating from a well-deserved beating, I later learned, laid upon him by Shane. Those outliers were the first to go, and by the time the walkers had sunk their teeth into flesh and tasted hot blood, there was no quelling their frenzy.

Rick, T-Dog, Glenn, Daryl, and I were coming over the rise when we began to hear the screams. Though we had raced back to the camp under the impression that, as Daryl put it, Merle would be "bringing some vengeance" back, we all knew at once that even the elder Dixon, despite a pain-filled rage, couldn't and likely wouldn't cause this much abject panic and horror. No, this was the dead.

Any accusations Daryl had made over my paltry skill-set immediately flew from my mind as I set to work. Inelegantly, I managed to take down three walkers on my own, by virtue of being able to come up behind them, force my hand under their chins (well out of reach of their teeth), and then shove my knife deep into the bases of their skulls. Effective initially, but subsequently problematic as it took some working and wrenching to release the knife. My third one was the worst, and pulling the blade out took so much force that I instantly tumbled backwards, taking my victim with me and narrowly missing the fire-pit.

"Hey, Riley!"

Shane tossed me my .45, and I took out a tall, scrawny female headed towards me, about fifteen yards away. My first shot clipped her shoulder, but I nearly dropped the gun with the force of it; my second found its home roughly in her temple, though that was pure luck, not skill. I felt a surge of ghoulish energy as I struggled to heave the male walker I'd just killed off of my winded body. Nearby, Glenn was fending off a couple dead ones about two yards from the pit. One made for his left side; I hit her in the arm which, while not killing her, certainly distracted her from her prey and allowed Morales to swing a baseball bat into her face.

Shaking my head to relieve myself of the memories, I now poked at the putrid fire with a long stick, ensuring that the walkers Glenn and T-Dog were industriously tossing upon it were burning thoroughly. They piled on a new one; I recognized the face of the female I'd shot - or, rather, what was left of her face. "Here," T-Dog said then, pausing to wipe his brow with the back of his hand and then press a green bandana into my hand. "Tie it around your mouth and nose."

"You got an endless supply of these things?" I dropped the stick and accepted the gift. It was fairly clean, save a few lint balls. I picked them off and then held the cloth in front of my face, suddenly feeling very inept.

"Want help?" T-Dog was an extraordinarily kind man, and very in-tune with my awkwardness. He folded the bandana into a triangle, and then very gently lined it up with the bridge of my nose and tied it somewhere behind my now-scraggly ponytail. "That should help with the smell and the smoke, a little."

I thanked him, adding a little quip about slipping a scented candle under there, too. Again, the guilt of apocalypse laughter struck us both, and together, we glanced over at where Andrea still kept a sad vigil over her dead sister; we got back to work.

Everyone at the camp was busy. Lori and Miranda had taken the four kids, all quite shell-shocked, to the safety of one of the larger tents, and were trying to talk them through what they'd all witnessed the night before. I didn't envy them the task. How did you even begin to sum that up for them? That we now lived in a world where the dead were walking, hungry, and wanted to kill us all? How in the hell did you start a conversation like that with your child?

Jacqui, Jim, and Carol were helping with the efforts to move the walker bodies closer to the fire. The dead members of our community were kept separate, handled more gently, and were being carefully wound in extra sheets and blankets - impromptu shrouds. Daryl was circulating the area with a pickaxe, and the sickening sound of that soft crunch, as he ensured every single body was well and truly dead, went right through me each time, as though it were my head he had crushed.

My back was aching, right in the small of it. After two hours of standing by that fire, poking at the flames and the charring limbs, I was sore and nauseated, but didn't quite know how to ask for a break. It didn't seem right. A good stretching session was in order, then. Dropping my stick once more, I reached my arms up high above my head, feeling the tension escape from my muscles and resisting the urge to sigh.

As I was in the middle of of this particular session, Lori emerged from one of the tents near the edge of the trees and very quietly, very kindly, approached Andrea, who didn't even register her arrival. We all tensed, suddenly, watching the scene unfold. Across the way, I caught Shane's eye. His countenance - furrowed brow and clenched jaw - smacked of frustration, of suppressed instinct. I hoped he wouldn't disrupt this. Despite his effective police training and the fact that he was more than handy in a fight, Shane had yet to muster up an adequate amount of sensitivity to handle a highly emotional situation.

Amy's corpse posed a risk to all of us. She had been bitten twice by a walker, once on the arm and once on the neck. It wasn't a matter of _if_ she would turn, but _when_. We'd all had different experiences with turning: the timings varied for everyone, perhaps depending on the number of bites, or perhaps even the age, mass, or general health status of the victim. Amy was a slim, healthy young woman, and she had now been dead for almost eight hours. It was only a matter of time.

I wanted to say something, to do something. Losing Amy was the worst possible blow Andrea could suffer right now, because it meant that she was now alone - I understood that. To have Lori be the one to kneel down next to her and try to sympathetically cajole her into releasing to the pickaxe the only tangible link she had to a happier past - the one person left in this world that she _loved_ \- that was unwise. Lori still had her son, and now her husband. She had her family. They should've asked me to go over, I thought.

But what would I say? I'd probably start by sitting down and telling her a funny story about Chloe. The time she got set up on a blind date with her piano teacher's son, who was kind of a jerk and wore a bad toupee at the age of twenty-two. Not because he was balding, no - he just shaved away his brown hair and bought a blond toupee. Seriously.

Then I would compliment Amy - her own beautiful, naturally blonde hair - try to bring Andrea around to speaking. Perhaps I would try to touch her, smooth down her hair or adjust her clothes, just to gauge Andrea's comfort level. After all, Amy and I had been starting to become friends, too. I was going to miss her, too. Maybe that would help.

I'd tell her about Chloe, about how it felt to realize that I was alone in the world, that the last bright light I'd known was extinguished. To sit there in that tent and hold her broken, vacant body and think over the years I'd known her, and how much better and more enjoyable my life had been with her in it. But then, in that grief-shocked emptiness, Daryl had approached. And even though he was cranky, forceful, rude, and fairly unpleasant, with him I hadn't been alone anymore. I wanted Andrea to look up and realize that even though Amy was gone, she wasn't completely alone. She had us. A group of recent strangers couldn't bring back your lost loved ones, but it sure as hell beat being alone. I felt sure that Amy wouldn't have wanted that for her sister, to simply sit next to a ticking time bomb and wait for it to go off.

But before I could make a move towards her, I watched Rick striding over. Maybe he could do what his wife couldn't, and I was too nervous to attempt. I certainly didn't want to make things worse with Andrea: I didn't have the same rapport with her that I had had with Amy, and after my confrontation with Daryl back in Atlanta, I just didn't want another argument, another person yelling in my face.

Rick got closer, preparing to kneel down, and all at once, as though we were connected somehow, I understood that Andrea would not take kindly to this offer, and as though in confirmation of it, she pulled out her handgun and aimed it at Rick. "Andrea," Rick said, slowly, carefully, peaceably. A surrender; a promise. But she just looked at him with ice-cold grief, and I think Rick knew then that she had something bigger planned, and he - nor any of us, really - was not a part of it.

"I know how the safety works." She didn't shriek or yell at him; she didn't even really threaten him. It was more a statement of fact, and she announced it coolly.

Hands up, a true surrender now, Rick backed away. "All right, okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

We all converged on Rick then, abandoning our tasks for the moment and taking a much-needed collective break. But tensions were running high, and people were frightened. Amy, as much as we had all cared for her, could no longer be in our midst as she was. A single walker in the camp could do a hell of a lot of damage, and though I'm sure we all empathized with Andrea, her grieving process could not occur at the expense of the safety of our group. In truth, well-handled grief was a luxury we could no longer experience, not in our current state. Sadness and heartbreak were expected, but so was picking yourself up and continuing on - surviving.

"Y'all can't be serious," Daryl snapped, swiping his left hand through the air in a gesture I'd come to recognize, in the short time I'd known him, as one of equal parts exasperation and frustration. "Let that girl hamstring us? The dead girl's a time bomb."

We all cringed at this particular view of our situation, but to be honest? He was right. Amy's dead body _was_ a time bomb, a ticking one, as I said. "What do you suggest?" Rick asked tersely.

"No," Lori interjected. "For God's sake, let her be."

Bless. Truly, I think she meant well, but her sensibilities and perspective were not well-suited to our present issue. Sure, comparing poor Amy to a turkey was crass - but leaving Andrea alone with the soon-to-be-reanimated corpse of her sister was downright dangerous.

I decided to just let it play out; I didn't feel I had enough pull or presence in the group yet to make an authoritative stand, and I wasn't even fully sure my approach would work. Losing Chloe had skewed my perspective; I was sure I would've just sat there and died in that tent, holding her body, but Daryl's arrival had spurred me to action. There would never be another Chloe, nor would there ever be another Amy for Andrea. But you carry on, I suppose, and find someone or something else: someone to care for; something to burn for.

We got back to work.

I added more accelerant to the fire and readjusted the bandana over my face, though it did little to temper the odour of the burning walkers. Morales and Daryl heaved over another body for the flames, and then paused as they waited for my go-ahead. I had too many at the moment, though, so I held up a hand to indicate that they should wait. Too many walkers and the flames might be smothered.

"What are you guys doing?"

Glenn's face was twisted, contorted and contoured with pain. As though he was in need of direction, Daryl's eyes found mine, but I was too shocked to say anything. I glanced down at the body; I recalled seeing the face around the fire on my first night. This was a camper, not a walker. "What's the difference?" Daryl asked, obviously deciding for himself. "They're all infected."

"Our people go in that row over there." Still upset, Glenn steadied his hand enough to point towards a neat arrangement of shrouded forms near the RV. "We don't burn them! We bury them. Understand? Our people go in that row over there."

When he had found me, Daryl had very carefully helped me to bury Chloe, after dragging the walkers we'd killed into the woods near the tent. He had demonstrated then that he understood the need for compassion and sensitivity; why hadn't he done so now? I wanted to ask him, but I still sensed some lingering awkwardness from our disagreement in the city, and strongly suspected that interrogating him about his graveside manner was not exactly a good way to ease that tension. "You reap what you sow," he muttered, heaving the body towards the "friend" row and away from the "foe" pile.

"You know what?" Morales huffed with the effort of the task. "Shut up, man."

"Y'all left my brother for dead," Daryl shot back. "You had this coming."

"Daryl." A warning, a placation, and the first time I'd spoken to him since the day before. He looked up at me, and so did Morales. "You can think that shit, but don't say it out loud."

Something hard and flinty entered his eyes, and I had a feeling he was about to yell at me again, perhaps even get into my face. I knew, however, that Daryl would never physically hurt me, and though that wasn't much of a threshold, it was a firm line I never worried he would cross. Nevertheless, I was spared the lecture by Jacqui's panicked, heart-stopping declaration: "A walker got him. A walker bit Jim!"

The group quickly converged upon Jim, who awkwardly tried to jerk away, to minimize the situation, though we could all see the red upon his shirt. "I'm okay, I'm okay," he muttered. Daryl demanded that he show us the wound, but to little avail - not that I blamed him. We had no precedent for what to do here; the mystery of what we _would_ do was probably the most terrifying aspect of it all, for Jim.

"Grab him."

Jim picked up a shovel to defend himself, but he was sorely outnumbered. T-Dog got a hold of him, and Daryl lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal a bloody, vicious bite on his side. "I'm okay," he said, over and over again, the mournful mantra of a dead man walking.

* * *

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it." It was a mark of his awareness that I would disapprove that Daryl avoided my gaze as he made this particular stand.

Jim was resting near the door of the RV, and the rest of us were gathered together, attempting to come to some sort of consensus on the matter. "Is that what you'd want if it was you?"

"Yeah," Daryl retorted, "and I'd thank you while you did it.

Oh, God. Spare me the martyr act.

Dale cleared his throat, and a wave of abject relief seemed to flood over me at the moment. He reminded me so much of my dad, and my dad _always_ knew what to do. "I hate to say it," he said, with the air of a man choosing his words very carefully (and reluctantly), "I never thought I would...but maybe Daryl's right."

Maybe he was. My perspective on the entire issue had fluctuated and developed since that first moment on the hill, looking down at a sick, agonized man who just wanted us to cure him and be kind to him. Jim was a good man, a friend, but the illness - the infection, the fever, the turning - was a fate I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Though Daryl's approach was crass, the most merciful thing we could've done to a person who had been bitten on the side, who had waited so long to tell us that the infection was irrevocably set into his blood (though we couldn't have amputated the site if he'd told us the instant it had occurred) - the most merciful thing we could've done was to very gently, very quietly end his life before he turned.

But we stood in shocked silence, because in our race to survive, to find food and shelter, to defend ourselves and each other from the dead, we hadn't yet had time to make too many moral decisions. The debate over Merle's abandonment had been the first, and it had been a brief and easy trial. Jim's situation, however, ran deeper, struck harder at our fears and our hearts. We had one option, and we knew it. Daryl had said it - admittedly with less poetry than we would have liked.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog," Rick said, his voice thick with emotion and not a little fear.

"I'm not suggesting - "

Rick continued as though Dale had not spoken. "He's sick, a sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear." Daryl shot Jim an accusatory look, as though he had intentionally generated this situation merely to test his patience. "Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be."

"What if we can get him help?" Rick implored. "I heard the CDC was working on a cure."

It was true. In my notebook, tucked away under the table in Dale's RV, I'd jotted down some of those early reports. I had set up email alerts on my laptop back at the school, so that when the CDC was mentioned in any news article (along with a variety of other key terms, including "virus," "riots," and "disease"), I would immediately be notified in my inbox. Most of these articles were printed, highlighted, and tattooed with my notes as I scavenged for essential information to include in my journal. Those early reports out of the CDC and Washington had attempted to reassure the American people that the virus was in control, that a cure was imminent, that the most intelligent people in our nation were working around the clock to heal the sick and purify the air.

"I heard that, too." Shane ran his fingers through his hair, tugging the locks back viciously. "Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell."

I shot him a look of venom at which he failed to flinch.

Rick's suggestion was soothing, almost, a balm for our anxious minds. The Centre for Disease Control wasn't terribly far from here, and I sensed that most of us would no longer be comfortable at the quarry. Our numbers had been greatly reduced by the walker attack, and it seemed likely that if it had happened once, it would happen again. Despite our fairly good visibility in most directions, we had no walls. If walkers came up the quarry road, our spotter would see them; but if they came out of the dark expanse of forest, as they had the night before, they would be on the outlying tents faster than we could load our guns. The prospect of a move to the other side of Atlanta, a place with meds, organization, and perhaps guaranteed safety - that looked pretty damn good.

"What if the CDC is still up and running?" Rick suggested, and the hope in his eyes really was contagious. Shane, however, seemed to be immune (surprise, surprise), and just shook his head.

"Man, that is a stretch right there," he argued.

But Rick was visibly growing more and more committed to this plan. "Why? If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the CDC at all costs, wouldn't they?" His eyes found mine, and I smiled in encouragement, in hope and enthusiasm. "I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection…"

"Okay, Rick, you want those things, all right? I do too, okay?" Shane looked around at the broader group assembled there. "Now, if they exist, they're at the army base. Fort Benning."

"That's a hundred miles in the opposite direction," Lori interjected.

"S'right," Shane nodded, "but it's away from the hot zone. Now, listen to me. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there."

"The military were on the front lines of this thing. They got overrun. We've all seen that. The CDC is our best choice and Jim's only chance." Rick was almost pleading at this point, and then he gestured to me. "Riley was in a military camp, she followed this thing from the start - what do you think?"

Suddenly, all eyes were on me. Some were kind and patient; most were worried. Shane's gazze was vaguely threatening, and Rick's held far too much expectation. I was surprised, honestly, that Rick was looking for my opinion, my experience. I was, after all, just a kid to most of these people - a stupid kid to some. But the way Rick Grimes was looking at me right then infused me with a kind of authority, maturity. I felt as though he'd lifted me onto a podium, given me the mic. "The, uh, camp I was in...they were on the edge, I think. At first...at first it was pretty good, because there were supplies and there was plenty of shelter. But once the black market started up - people wanted guns and secret stashes, I don't think they really trusted the soldiers." A shuddering breath, such a meagre eulogy for Matt and Rhiannon. "They were beating on people in the hallways, and I think...I think they started hurting women in exchange for supplies."

Shane exhaled in what I could only assume was frustration. "Look, kid, I"m sorry it went that way, but that was just some militia refugee camp. We're talking a fortified base here, with _real_ soldiers - "

"The ones who raped my friend because she wanted insulin seemed pretty fucking real to me!" I shot back. "Man, this shit changes people. Even soldiers. We can't know for sure that Benning is even standing. The CDC is closer, and would be much more of a priority than a base!"

Shane opened his mouth to add something, but Daryl's voice came out instead: "You go looking for aspirin, do what you need to do. Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!" He lunged towards Jim, pickaxe in hand, muscles tensed for a swing. Cowardly, I closed my eyes and waited for the sickening sound of Jim's death.

Instead, I heard the click of a revolver being engaged.

"We don't kill the living."

Rick's voice seemed to ring through the entire quarry, an absolute declaration. I opened my eyes to see him, standing side-to, Colt Python trained at Daryl's forehead.

"That's funny, coming from a man who just put a gun to my head." I was impressed; Daryl's voice didn't shake a bit. But I bet even he was near pissing his pants.

"We may disagree on some things, not on this," Shane said. "You put it down, go on." Daryl threw the axe to the ground and headed towards the woods. In spite of every sensible instinct telling me not to, I followed.

* * *

"You know I'm right, don't you?" Daryl kicked at a fallen log on the forest floor and then sat down, as though he'd been testing it for strength. He left enough space next to him for me to sit down, too. Hoping I wasn't about to get my head bitten off again, I joined him.

"Maybe, but you could be a little more sensitive about it." I watched as he fumbled in his pants pocket, coming up with a battered pack of cigarettes and a lighter a few seconds later. He fished one out of the pack, lit it up, and then we were enveloped in a haze of nicotine.

Neither of my parents had smoked, and only one of my brothers had indulged in the occasional joint. For some reason, though, the acrid smell and the way the smoke danced around us was kind of comforting, like coming home. Perhaps it was that it was such a casual thing to do, something Daryl had probably done to wind down, at one point: taking smoke breaks at work, hanging out with friends, shooting the breeze with his brother. It was a companionable action, and he'd chosen to share it with me.

He took a long drag and then breathed it out. "Ain't much room for being sensitive in this shitstorm."

"There's always room for that. There has to be."

"You one of them Pollyanna types or something?" he scoffed.

"Hell no," I chuckled. "Just...he's still a person, Daryl, It's one thing to swing an axe into a walker's head, but Jim's sick, he's just sitting there. And there may be a chance we could get him cured. Don't you want to find that out? Wouldn't that change things?"

Daryl didn't answer, seemingly preferring to let an awkward silence join us there on the log. It wa actually a perfect autumn day, though I felt guilty for observing it. Still warm, of course (this was Georgia, after all), and we were both sweaty from our exertions - I was sure my hair and clothes reeked of the fire and the bodies I'd been burning. But it was nice to have a moment, finally, just to breathe. Not to feel guilty or afraid or worried or angry. Just to be out in the woods. Listening to the birds.

"Can I try?"

I gestured to the cigarette between his fingers, the charred end trailing a small curl of smoke into the breeze. He looked at me quizzically, as though my request was entirely outlandish. "You ever do it before?" he asked, and I shook my head. "Try it on this one, then. Ain't no point wasting a fresh one if you're just gonna cough up a lung and cry about it."

"Yeah, because I've got a huge-ass precedent of doing just that." I shoved him in what I hoped he construed as a friendly way. "Hand it over, Dixon."

Damn; I hoped I wouldn't cough up a lung and cry about it.

I took a long, smooth, flawless drag on the smoke - and then coughed violently, choking on whatever nastiness I'd just inhaled. Daryl grinned, a devilish thing that flashed across his face and took both of us by surprise. I waved the cigarette in front of my face, trying to dissipate the residual evidence of my embarrassment upon the air. "Oh, sh-shit," I sputtered, and then took another drag. This one went down easier, and I only gave a slight cough as I handed it back over.

There was something curiously intimate about the way he just took the thing from my hand and then placed it between his own lips. I blushed, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"I know why you don't want to leave," I murmured, gently breaking the silence. "This is where Merle would come back to."

I knew he didn't want to leave; during the Fort Benning versus CDC debate, he'd remained staunchly silent, and not participating in an argument was the surest sign he was afraid of either outcome. At my words, he shifted on the log, looked away from the direction of the camp. "He's my brother." That was all he could say, and really, it was all that he needed to say. Regardless of his unpredictable temperament, his unwillingness to play well with others, Merle was Daryl's family, and no amount of posturing and convincing could change that.

If we left, whether for the base or the CDC, Merle would not know where to find his brother, unless we left some sort of note and map. Remaining at the quarry camp was the best chance that Daryl had at reconnecting with his only living (so far as I was aware) relative. I pitied his predicament, but felt slightly ill at the prospect of him staying behind. What could he do? Sit around a fire on his own, living in a tent with nothing but his crossbow? On his own, the camp would be vulnerable as he slept; he'd have to leave and find food and risk his life every time he stepped outside the flaps. There was no real indication, either, that Merle was returning any time soon. If he had taken the cube van, as we suspected, what was to stop him from returning while we were still there, bringing back that vengeance Daryl had been so worried about? Even though he'd likely construed Rick and T-Dog's treatment as a sign he was no longer welcome in the group, Merle wouldn't have driven off into the proverbial sunset without his brother - would he?

Without reply, however, Daryl just stood, took one last puff of the cigarette, handed it over, and headed back to camp.

* * *

Daryl returned to swinging the pickaxe and I went back to tending the fire, keeping our cigarette going until it was the tiniest stub I could imagine, and then I tossed that into the flames, too. T-Dog gave me a strange look when I returned to my post, his eyes darting from me to Daryl and back again, and I knew he was dying to ask what had transpired. But he didn't.

"Amy, Amy, I'm sorry."

Away from the group, in the privacy of a final moment, Andrea faced her dead sister. Tense, we all watched as she stroked Amy's hair, murmuring soft words of comfort and apology, trying to find some sort of fitting resolution to their years together. It was impossible, I wanted to tell her. You can't do it. There's never a right time or the best way to say goodbye forever. "I'm here now, Amy. I'm here. I love you." Gently, lovingly, carefully - she shot her sister in the head.

* * *

Jim's fever got worse.

He was settled in the RV, in the back bedroom that Amy and Andrea had shared. I sat outside, flipping through the pages of the black notebook I'd fished out of my bag. Anticipating the need for packing, I'd accumulated my remaining supplies and transferred them into the backpack, rather than the duffel, which was cumbersome and purely sentimental. I'd purged a few pieces of clothing (mainly the blood-soaked t-shirt, jeans, and socks I'd been wearing as I partic the attack on the camp, and burned the walkers' bodies). My fire was smouldering; Jim was raving in the RV; and I was craving a cigarette. Could a nicotine addiction set in that quick?

As though I had summoned him, Daryl threw himself down on the ground beside me, resting back against the vehicle and holding out a lit smoke between his fingers. I kept my smile to myself as I accepted it. "You going?" I asked, taking an expert drag.

We'd buried the bodies that morning, up on the hill. Conversations about leaving had intensified before it was decided that we would indeed head for the CDC the next day, after spending yesterday and a significant chunk of the this burning and burying our dead, and the dead. Those who were going to be driving were being ordered to catch a few hours of sleep while the rest of us packed.

Daryl nodded.

"That's good," I said, handing back the cigarette. "I'm sorry about your brother, but we'd worry if we left you behind, you know?"

"Ain't nobody gonna worry about me." He breathed in, looked out across the camp. "I don't want to talk about Merle, okay?"

My turn with the smoke again. "Okay." This was becoming a bit of a habit for us - repressed emotions and shared cigarettes. "You packed?" He just shrugged in response, and I wondered what that would entail exactly, anyhow? Just shoving a bunch of sleeveless shirts into a bad, along with a lighter and some extra bolts? "Well, you can help me then. Take this." I pressed the notebook in his hands, stuck the cigarette between my lips. "On top, put it in last," I mumbled.

Four t-shirts, all rolled up; a thermal henley shirt; two pairs of jeans; one pair of leggings; a handful of socks and underwear, along with two bras (which, mercifully, I'd already placed in the bottom of the bag), and a hooded sweater that I decided to tie around my waist for the time being. Evenings would be getting colder soon enough. I'd also takne just one of the water bottles that Chloe and I had escaped with - sentimentally, I'd chosen the one with the Jasper Hall logo on it. Then I tossed my toothbrush, some toothpaste, and the few battered paperbacks Dale had loaned me inside. And Henry. Daryl snorted at that.

"Fuck off," I advised him, and then took the notebook and settled it on top. It was almost entirely full; I'd scribed my little haiku on one of the last pages and decided I didn't need anything else. But it felt right to carry around my history; my story of Chloe. The closest thing I would have to a legacy, I gathered. "There. Done." I turned to him with a smile. "You're extremely charming, do you know that? The way you just never stop gabbing, it's a real pleasure hanging out with you."

He scoffed and stubbed out the cigarette. "Yeah, I been told that."

"Did you just make a joke?" I feigned abject shock, my hand flying to my neck as though I simply couldn't believe it. "Mr. Dixon, I do believe you just engaged in some witty repartee!"

"Shut it." He shifted his feet, causing a minor sandstorm to erupt near the vicinity of his shoes. "Just came over to ask...to say...well - " he stood abruptly, staring pointedly at the forest beyond, as though to look at anything but me - "I got room in Merle's truck, if you wanted to ride along. Figure Lori'd give you shit for smoking, but if you wanted…"

"Yeah, thanks," I said, standing too. "That'd be cool." Picking up my backpack and adjusting it over my shoulder, I added: "I like talking to you."

He didn't say anything, and I wasn't surprised. Daryl wasn't loquacious, not even remotely so, but I enjoyed his company in a very strange way. He kept me on edge, not knowing if he was going to joke or yell or sit in stony silence. He sugarcoated _nothing_ , but he also treated me like an adult - for the most part. Upon reflection and later conversation with T-Dog, I learned that his outburst in the city, after the Vatos had released me and Glenn - that had likely been born of extreme anxiety over our safety, and his own guilt that he hadn't done more to defend the two of us. "He was wild when we had to leave you with them," T explained as he helped me heave the last two bodies onto the flames. "Kept going on about how he was going to kill them, they'd better not touch you, all that."

All his complaining, then, about me being a stupid little kid? Likely nothing more than a belated expression of his extreme fear for my safety. In a weird, maladaptive way, that was comforting.

* * *

The Morales family left us, driving towards Birmingham. I was sad to see them go - Sophia and Carl were devastated at losing their playmates, and I think we were all concerned, but they were a capable couple, the Moraleses, both quick-thinking and brave, and they wanted to find their extended family. I convinced myself that they would be fine, as I hugged them both goodbye.

We left by the early afternoon, rolling out like a convoy. Daryl secured Merle's motorcycle to the back of the truck and then we both climbed inside, me accompanied by a warning look from Lori; Daryl by one from Rick. As though anything would happen. At first, the drive was actually sort of fun. For a little while, I forgot about poor Jim moaning and suffering in the back of the RV and amused myself by flipping through Merle's CD collection, which actually included a few I recognized, including - surprisingly, a Dire Straits album from 1980. We shared a cigarette and drove towards the city, for once settling into a companionable silence, instead of me overtalking and him bitching at me for something. It was nice - kind of like a road-trip with an unconventional friend my mother would be horrified to find me in the company of, you know?

We were forty minutes out from camp, however, when the RV ground to a halt on the road and our convoy stopped. I'd been trying to doze, cuddled up against the window using my sweater as a pillow. "Wh-what's going on?" I yawned, stretching out my arms towards the horizon.

"Don't know." I hopped out after him.

It was the radiator hose on the RV, the one that Jim and Dale had been hoping to replace from the cube van that Merle, presumably, had stolen. Three days ago, it hadn't been long for this world, and it certainly wasn't up to a hundred-mile trip. "Can you jury-rig it?" Rick asked, peering inside the hood.

Dale shook his head. "That's all it's been so far. "It's more duct tape than hose. And I'm out of duct tape."

"I see something up ahead," Shane said. "A gas station, if we're lucky."

There _was_ some sort of building further up the road. Some mom-and-pop outfit, a bit faded and janky, with a poster in the right-hand window offering farm-fresh eggs. Chloe and I had passed it on our way out of the city; I'd managed to find a few bottles of water still in the cooler, and a few twists of beef jerky kicked under the counter. I hadn't had a need, though, to check out the service station part of the building, and it was probably - or at least, not impossible - that there could be a suitable hose somewhere inside.

It was clear, too. Well, it had been last week.

"Y'all, Jim...it's bad. I don't think he can take anymore." Jacqui's voice, high and pinched with panic, broke me from my reverie. She left a stunned silence in her wake as she retreated back into the RV, to tend to her doomed patient.

Shane made arrangements for him and T-Dog to head down the road and check the station; solemnly, Rick headed into the RV. The rest of us milled around aimlessly, rudderless without a camp, without tasks; frightened and grieving for the ones we had already lost, and for the ones we were losing.

Daryl lit another cigarette, but he didn't share this one, just stalked over to pace by the forest's edge, a couple of yards ahead. I didn't mind; I wanted to be on my own for a few minutes, so I lowered myself to the lip of the road and faced the trees, hugging my knees to my chest and remembering the last time I'd been here. While I'd been sleeping, I guessed, we had passed by Chloe's grave, which wasn't marked, anyway. She was dead and gone, safe and snug under the grass, and she was out of it. She didn't have to worry about fighting or eating or worse - being eaten.

Tramping along the road out from the city, I wasn't really sure where I was headed, just knew I needed to be far away from where I had been. Didn't have a destination in mind, no real plan or ideas about what I was looking for. God, I'd been stupid. Damn lucky to be alive now.

But this time was different - I was a part of something; we had a plan and a purpose, and we'd made our choices together. That warmed me more than the hot sun, the searing of the asphalt through my jeans. Jim's impending death and his current suffering, though, made me sink with sadness and guilt, even as I basked in the glow of purpose and _life_. Would it always be like this? Would I always stand vigil at deathbeds, grinning because I wasn't the one dying?

"It's what he says he wants." Rick had emerged from the RV.

"And he's lucid?" Carol asked, pulling her daughter closer, looking worriedly at the window to the back bedroom. Rick nodded.

"He seems to be. I would say yes."

I stood, joined the small group. "What's going on?"

Carol turned to me with tears shining in her eyes, reaching out a free hand to grasp my shoulder. Keeping me with her. "Jim wants us to leave him here," she explained, her voice suddenly hoarse. "To die."

 _Oh, God_.

"Back in the camp, when I said Daryl might be right and you shut me down, you misunderstood." Once again, Dale had struck that strange balance between gravitas and zeal. "I would never go along with callously killing a man," he continued, shaking his head. "I was just gonna suggest that we ask Jim what he wants. And I think we have an answer."

"We just leave him here?" Shane interjected; I started at his voice, having not realized that he and T-Dog had returned. "We take off? Man, I'm not sure I could live with that."

I opened my mouth, but Lori stole my words: "It's not your call, either one of you." Chasing choices, that was what this world was about now. Really, it had always been about that. It's just that we all got so bogged down with boring choices - cream in your coffee, or straight black; root for this team or that team; morning or afternoon appointments; yoga or movie marathon - that we became immune, blinded, to the bigger ones. Live or die; love or lose; hold on or let go.

Jim wanted to die, he wanted us to lose him, and he needed us to let him go.

And that was his choice. If we dragged him along, his aching bones rattling in his flesh, his nightmares growing more real by the second; his fever burning him from within - what kind of people would we be? I'd been selfish when I had dragged Chloe out from the city, I'd made our choice based on what I wanted. I'd be damned if I was going to be a part of something like that again.

So we found a shady tree, plenty far off the road. I cleared the exposed roots free from tiny twigs that might poke into Jim as he sat, and Sophia and Carl helped me to gather extra leaves to form some sort of a cushion for him. By the looks of him, though, as Rick and Shane carried him over, the poor man would not need the comfort very long.

He groaned as they put him down, a keen that struck through all of us. "Hey, another damn tree," he joked without any real humour, referring to an occasion a few days ago when Shane had had to tie him to a tree back at the quarry, after he'd become overwrought and raving by heatstroke. It pained me that those were some of his final memories.

We all stood ranged in front of him, a final goodbye panel. It was the closest we could get to a funeral for him, just standing there, weak smiles and wet eyes. Something brushed my elbow, and I registered Daryl's presence at my side. If he'd been any other type of guy, I'd probably would have tried to hold his hand - I guess, if he'd been RJ. But I didn't dare. Together, though, we watched as Jacqui knelt in front of Jim, all kindness and love. "Just close your eyes, sweetie," she said softly, kissing his cheek. "Don't fight."

Rick was next; he offered a small handgun to Jim, who just shook his head in refusal. "You'll need it," he said. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

I murmured a goodbye and then fled back to the truck, barely able to see my way for the tears welling in my eyes. I wished I hadn't woken up when we'd stopped; this was so much harder than I'd imagined. Not even waiting for Daryl to get back in, I just balled up my sweater again and pressed it against the window, closed my eyes, and hoped for better dreams.

* * *

"Wake up." No, I wanted five more minutes. I was in the midst of a rather pleasant dream featuring a variety of attractive male celebrities who only wanted to attend to my every whim, including a penchant for being fanned with palm leaves and drinking some sort of creamy purple cocktail that tasted faintly of paradise. "Wake up." A hand brushed my shoulder, pushed a little, so I sent out a blind and weak punch in the general direction of my disturber as I resisted the swim to consciousness. "Shit, girl. Wake the fuck up. We're here."

I opened my eyes to a city in ruin, a sky fast growing dim. Outside the windshield of the truck rose a sprawling, anonymous concrete structure, though the way to it was littered with debris and the dead. "We're here?" Blinking, I turned to Daryl, who was reaching down to the floor where, between our feet, he had stowed the crossbow. He nodded and then jerked his head towards my door.

"Let's go."

The smell was the epitome of disgusting, assaulting my nose with a rancid punch. Hundreds of rotting bodies were strewn across the street and parking lot; the scent of death was relentless upon the air. I slung my backpack over my shoulders and wished I'd kept one of T-Dog's bandanas, although realistically, it wouldn't have done much. "All right, everybody, keep moving. Go on, stay quiet. Let's go, okay. Keep moving. Stay together." Shane's directions came fast and furious, the loudest whisper I'd ever heard. Daryl moved to the outside of the group, leaving me to band together with Carol and Sophia, the latter of the pair reaching out to cling to my hand and to her mother's, perhaps feeling safer with two adults by her side. Jacqui shushed us needlessly, but maybe it made her feel better.

"Keep it together," Shane said as we moved closer and closer towards the looming building ahead, navigating this no-man's land of walkers, not knowing how many were "fully" dead and how many were just lying dormant.

Carl whimpered as he caught a glimpse of a particularly gory corpse. "We're almost there, baby," his mother soothed. "Almost there."

The front doors of the Centre for Disease Control, when we finally reached them, were constructed of smooth, impenetrable metal and possibly the most beautiful, welcoming example of architecture I'd ever seen. As we approached, however, there was no acknowledgement of our presence - no buzz, no lights flashing, no friendly neighbourhood microbiologist opening the door with a plate of cookies and a cure.

"Nothing?" Shane was incredulous and began glancing around wildly, as though searching for a welcome mat or a hide-a-rock key. He pounded on the door a few times, which set us all cringing. I stole a look over my shoulder, hoping none of the dead would start to move at the noise.

"There's nobody here."

"Then why are these shutters down?" Rick moved closer to the doors and pointed to the metal sheeting that had been scaled down the surface of the building, likely for bolstered security. I felt hope rise within me, a trembling flame.

"Walkers!" Daryl wheeled around, crossbow raised and aimed at a dead one heading straight for us. He fired. "You led us into a graveyard."

"He made a call," argued Shane, surprisingly defensive. This hadn't been his idea, after all. Actually, it was the complete opposite of his idea.

"It was the wrong damn call!"

"Just shut up" - Shane grabbed Daryl by the front of his shirt - "you hear? Shut up. Shut up! Rick," he continued, turning to his friend. "Rick, this is a dead end."

Jacqui reached out to grip my side, pulling me into her as though I were the one in need of comfort. I wished for that kind of clarity: my blood was frozen in my veins, and my mind was sluggish, struggling to process the gravity of our situation. "Where are we gonna go?" she asked.

Shane ignored her question. "Do you hear me?" he asked Rick, instead, forcefully. "No blame."

"She's right," Lori pleaded. "We can't be here, this close to the city after dark."

"Fort Benning, Rick," Shane entreated. "Still an option." What a goddamn jerk, I thought. Shane had probably been hoping this would happen, just so that he could have the victory of being right and then reasserting himself as the leader of our group.

"On what?" Andrea interjected. "No food, no fuel. That's a hundred miles."

"One hundred twenty five," Glenn added. "I checked the map."

Shit.

"Forget Fort Benning." Lori had pushed her way closer to her husband. "We need answers tonight, now."

Rick looked at us all, we who had hitched our fates and fortunes to his confidence and his plans; the mothers who had entrusted their children to him, including his own son; the people who were depending upon him to find something better. I've always said that if anyone was ever entitled to a complete nervous breakdown, it was Rick Grimes - the pressure we put on him probably wasn't all that fair, but what else could we do? He was strong and wise, authoritative and intentional. He was a better man than most. "We'll think of something," he said quietly, avoiding our faces. Our accusations.

"Come on, let's go, let's get out of here, let's go...please." Shane started trying to herd us away from the entrance and our only current hope, but Rick was still studying the doors, looking them up and down. His eyes flickered up slightly, and his whole presence changed, became electrified. "The camera...it moved."

We all froze.

"Rick," Shane said evenly, calmly now. "It's dead, man. It's an automated device. It's gears, okay? They're just winding down. Now, come on." He tried to gently lead Rick by the shoulder, back to the convoy, back through the graveyard, but Rick just pulled away, pawing at the doors. "Man, just listen to me," Shane continued, his voice rising and straining in fear and frustration. "Look around this place. It's dead, okay. You need to let it go, Rick."

But his partner just started slamming his fists upon the shutters of the CDC's main doors, demanding entrance, begging for safe harbour. Lori began to yell, telling him no one was there, and then she and Shane together had to wrench him away from the doors. At the loss of his mother's hand, Carl darted to my side, and I slipped two of my own hands around his, as Jacqui released me. "It's gonna be okay," I whispered, because that is how you comfort children in times of crisis, with tender lies.

"I know you're in there!" Rick howled. "I know you can hear me!"

"Everybody get back to the cars now!" Shane hollered over him.

As was my habit, I glanced over at Daryl; he was making no moves to return to the vehicles, so I stayed put, trusting his judgement. "Please!" Rick was nearly frothing at the mouth in his state now. "We're desperate. Please help us. We have women, children - no food, hardly any gas left."

More walkers were beginning to stir, to approach us, hungry and intent. I hadn't yet thought a whole hell of a lot about how I wanted to die, but I knew that I didn't want to do it on a threshold of potential safety. If Rick said the camera moved, I believed him.

"Rick," Lori begged. "There's nobody here."

But the tide of Rick's conviction was stronger than our panic. Carl moved back to his mother, who embraced him, and despite myself, I sprang to Daryl's side, not wanting to be alone. It felt like a slightly pathetic move to make, but I did it anyway. Likely not conscious of what _he_ was doing, Daryl wrapped an arm around me - not in a tender way, mind you, but a "maybe they won't be able to eat you if I do this" kind of a hold, my back fast against his chest, his arm across my shoulders. "Please help us!" Rick screamed. "You're killing us! You're killing us! You're killing us!"

And then the doors opened.


	8. TS-19

_**Chapter VIII: TS-19**_

I wanted to sleep for a hundred years. My entire body was aching with unreleased tension and fear, the kind of soul pain that comes when you think, wholeheartedly, that are you are about to die. We wouldn't have made it through that graveyard outside of the CDC - we would have been outnumbered and swarmed, torn apart where we stood. That knowledge had rushed through my mind, a terrible tangle of misery and preemptive grief exhausting me wholly. I fairly leaned against Daryl when the doors opened, weak in the knees from the ordeal. In response, however, he jerked away, his arm streaking from my shoulders as though I had abruptly ignited and burned him, hot as a candle flame.

I felt a vague sense of regret at the loss of his reassuring physical presence, but then, just as quickly, I was embarrassed. Only a few days before, I'd set out as a leader in my own right, independently and of my own design. Chloe's safety and our joint bid for liberty were my only concerns, and quite bravely, I'd faced a long, empty, winding road - both tangible and metaphorical in nature, if you'll allow it. And yet here I was now, clinging to one man, gazing wide-eyed and hopeful at a future laid out before me by another. It was not how I liked to think of myself: quite suddenly, I was cognizant of my need to maintain at least a little independence, because if things went sour with this group, I would need to have the wits, strength, and supplies to head out on my own. Despite the current, high-stress situation, I found myself on the edge of blushing with this mortification at my newfound-dependency upon Daryl Dixon, and instead, took a few steps away from him and tried to appear as self-possessed as I could.

Shane began to dispense orders; I shimmied the .45 out from the back of my jeans and held it at the ready. He and Rick led the group through the doors, and we moved into a cool, clean space, with all the polished modernism one would expect of the nation's premiere medical defence institution. It was a veritable palace, especially in comparison to the prospect of a night pressed together like sardines in the RV.

"Hello?" Shane tossed the greeting, pulsing as it was with equal parts hope and threat, out into the gloom. "Hello?"

Light bloomed across our faces, and a man - an ordinary, middle-aged man with tired eyes and fair hair - materialized out from the depths of the massive building. The sight would have been tremendously reassuring were it not for the fact that the man was bearing a rather menacing gun, and was presently aiming it directly at our faces. "Anybody infected?"

As per usual, Rick took the lead, answering the man's questions calmly and honestly. One member of our group had been infected, he confessed, but we had lost him on the way. The man's face remained impassive throughout the entire exchange, almost as though he had been expecting us. As though we were not remotely surprising. Something kindled deep inside of me as I searched his expression for answers: had he asked about infected members because he had a cure secreted somewhere? Had we stumbled upon the only scientist here available to speak to us - was everyone else still hard at work? Or was he steeling himself for the harsh task of turning us back out into the graveyard whence we had come?

"Why are you here?" he asked sharply. "What do you want?"

Rick flung out our hopes, all that we truly had: "A chance."

The man visibly weighed the words, counting them up against our weary faces and our frightened children. "That's asking an awful lot these days."

"I know."

Yes, he weighed those words, too, and with his final tally, lifted our spirits no end: "You all submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission."

Rick exhaled in relief. "We can do that."

The scientist advised us to collect any belongings needed; once he closed those doors again, they would remain closed. Most of us had brought the main things we required, bags in hand or backpacks slung across shoulders, but Daryl, T-Dog, and Glenn did head back to the RV and other vehicles to scavenge for remaining items. Those who had free arms allowed themselves to be laden down with the supplies. Sophia clutched her doll, a parting gift from Eliza Morales. And we had each other.

"Vi," our new friend pronounced, speaking to the air. "Seal the main entrance. Kill the power up here."

With a cacophony of beeps, rattles, and clangs, this main level of the CDC was closed down, shifting back into darkness and isolation. We were led to a large elevator, certainly sizeable enough for us to all fit in with some squashing required. Briefly, I considered asking if there were stairs (I wasn't exactly a full-blown claustrophobic, but I did have a specific and well-endowed terror of being trapped in an elevator; where it stemmed from, I couldn't say), but then decided against it. Brave new world, and I needed to be brave in it.

Rick introduced himself; our names were yet too numerous to provide. Our new friend was Dr. Edwin Jenner, a moniker which did tend to stick in my mind in a very particular way, as though it were an echo of someone I had known. "Doctors always go around packing heat like that?" Daryl asked, referring to the gun Jenner held.

"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself."

 _My, my - the apocalypse makes warriors of us all_ , I thought dryly, though to be honest I was just trying to avoid thinking about the way the elevator was clattering and shifting, and the fact that Glenn had stood on my foot as soon as we had stepped in and had yet to move.

"But you" - and here Jenner glanced down at Sophia, with a gentle smile - "look harmless enough." A soft beam curled in her lips, the first positive expression I'd seen grace that child's face in most of the time I'd known her. He turned to Carl next. "Except you. I'll have to keep my eye on you." And as though being accused of appearing untrustworthy was a grand compliment, Carl grinned.

I'm not sure how many floors we descended, but after another few minutes, we were able to disembark and then follow Jenner down a rabbit warren of hallways, turning left, then right, then left again until I was so fully disoriented that I simply kept my eyes on my boots and plodded on. "Are we underground?" Carl asked, her voice sounding small.

"Are you claustrophobic?"

"A little."

Dr. Jenner offered her a rueful smile. "Try not to think about it."

Would you fancy that? Already we were receiving top-notch medical advice.

We walked for another few minutes, descending a short flight of stairs, when I sensed that we were abruptly in another space entirely. This one was far larger than the hallways we'd been scurrying through only a few moments before: the air felt bigger here, and a little...fresher? "Vi," Jenner said, addressing his unseen companion once again, "bring up the lights in the big room."

Accompanied by many mechanic hums and electronic beeps, the lights flooded the room - a huge space dominated by a screen worthy of any movie house worth its stuff. Arranged concentrically around this screen was a labyrinth of desks and workstations, some with computers and other technological equipment; a few littered with random bottles of beer and wine. Standard procedure for the CDC, I wondered, or perhaps the sign of some celebration? Jenner cleared his throat. "Welcome to Zone 5."

"Where is everybody?" Rick looked around the huge space as though expecting to see a bevy of other scientists pop out from underneath the desks. "The other doctors, the staff?"

"I'm it," Jenner replied heavily. "It's just me here."

No, that couldn't be right. He must still be testing us, gauging our loyalty and our values, before he subjected his colleagues to our presence. Or maybe they were sleeping, or doing a shift change? Maybe they were having dinner in a cafeteria down the hall? Maybe...maybe…

"What about the person you were speaking with?" I asked, my voice croaking from an unpleasant combination of a lack of use, thirst, and hope. "Vi?"

Dr. Jenner smiled again, but it was an odd thing: wistful, tinged with regret. "Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them...welcome."

"Hello, guests. Welcome." The voice was remarkably human, infused with a sense of personality. But it was an automated voice, _that_ I was sure of. Likely a composite of multiple recorded phrases by an actual woman, but automated nonetheless. Any hope I did have sputtered out within me, and the rest of the evening flashed by in an exhausted, wine-soaked, drunken blur.

Jenner administered the necessary blood tests, and then offered us food - he had soup, chicken fingers, frozen french fries, some sort of honey-garlic shrimp stir-fry, and a variety of canned vegetables. We managed to cobble together a delicious smorgasbord - though likely most of its appeal stemmed from the essential detail that most of us hadn't eaten properly in days. He even poured a few glasses of wine, which I gratefully accepted. I'd never actually tried wine before, but less than a week ago, I'd never seen an undead human being walking around either, so I was game for new experiences.

It was nice to be drunk. Everything felt fuzzy and soft, as though the whole world was wearing pyjamas. All of a sudden, everything seemed distant, and I started to forget about all the horrific things that had happened to us over the past few days. No more walkers; Jim was on a pleasant holiday; Amy had gone with him; and things were going to just fine. Really.

Oh, I needed a cigarette.

Jacqui and I chose a room together; vaguely, I was aware of her helping me to wriggle into a borrowed pair of her pyjamas. They were warm and a little tight (Jacqui was tall and slender; I was built like my oldest brother), but there was something infinitely comforting about having someone help me get ready for bed that all I could do was smile at her and tell her she was my best friend. "Sweetheart, I don't think you're a wine kind of girl," she gently advised.

I had a shower; she combed it out and bound it back into a French braid, a style my mother had once practically decreed I wear constantly. I mentioned this to Jacqui as she finished. "You must miss your mom," she sighed.

Did I? My parents and brothers had flitted in and out of my mind since the outbreak, and the one garbled phone call I'd been able to make to my dad had been the last time I'd contacted them. I had warned them that things were getting out of hand, that they should get somewhere isolated - the cities were going to be dangerous. Maybe his sister's cottage in Michigan, I suggested. I advised that they gathered supplies and holed up there for the duration.

Whether or not they had taken my plans to heart, I had no clue. There was no way to get a phone call all the way to the northern states, and we weren't going to be taking a swing up that way anytime soon. No, I had accepted a few weeks ago that my family was likely dead. And really, I didn't miss them - oh, God, that sounds bad.

I guess, to be more accurate, I _couldn't_ miss them. My days were now about staying alive, keeping my new friends alive. I couldn't afford to sit and wallow, for them or for Chloe and RJ, because then others would get hurt. Any lapse in attention on my part could spell the end for Carl, for Sophia, for Jacqui, for Carol...for any of them. For me.

I excused myself from Jacqui with a grateful smile, muttering something about brushing my teething, but really, I needed to throw up first. Turns out, I definitely was _not_ a wine type of girl.

* * *

That night, I dreamed of my father. Kind eyes, soft voice, grand ideas. I sometimes wonder if we, his children, were disappointments to him. My brothers and I were all pragmatists, ambitious and focused. Dad was a creative - a genius, really. And though my brothers and I could appreciate music and art and all of that, our tastes in both tended to run to what might be called "common." We didn't think outside the box. Even my writing, which was typically a creative outlet for many, was factual and critical. I preferred to play in a measured space, manipulating words in a controlled environment. Rarely, however, did any sort of inspired, creative novelty find its genesis in my mind or my pen.

But I loved my father. Loved him because he was creative, an artist. He could look at a blank space and fill it without any tools or utensils; he could make you see it, too. He always thought a thousand steps ahead. He was a dreamer, I suppose.

In my own dreams that night - my wine-induced dreams - I am seven. Dirty from a soccer game, irritable with hunger. Too tired to walk back to the minivan. My father scoops me up and nestles me high on his shoulder, and we walk, we walk, we walk. We go home.

* * *

I woke before Jacqui, before anyone. I showered and changed into clean clothes from the depths of my backpack; folded up the blankets from the couch I'd slept on and tried to neaten the dampened braid Jacqui had given me the night before.

The CDC was still and quiet, silent as a grave. I walked past the doors to the other makeshift bedrooms and heard snoring and soft chatter - the hum of a relaxed morning. Spending the evening with Jacqui had been calming, enjoyable. She had a soft, motherly way about her that endeared her to me immediately, and I felt so safe with her that I could shift the responsibility for my own safety from my shoulders for a little while, hand it over to her. That's the way with kids, isn't it? Young adults, too, I suppose. For all of my posturing, my bravado and my boldness, I was still just a kid. Twenty-one going on ten: I wanted big, strong grown-ups to take my burdens and bear me to safety.

The kitchen we'd commandeered and basically totalled the night before was still in a state of disarray, so I puttered around for a few minutes there; rinsed a few plates and wine glasses; scraped the remains of whatever we'd eaten into a trash can; wiped down the table until it gleamed. Tidying up wasn't a task I'd been able to indulge in over the past few months - naturally, survival notches higher on the to-do list than does a clean kitchen. But it was actually sort of calming to realize that these - dishes and making a pot of coffee - could be the most trying tasks of my day. It was soothing.

As I scooped the grinds into the twelve-cup Mr. Coffee machine, though, a bolt of awareness shot through me and I whirled around to see my silently-approaching morning companion: Daryl Dixon, dressed in his usual uniform of a DIY-ed sleeveless shirt, dusty jeans, and a sheepish look. He had showered, though, I could see that - he looked distinctly pinker. Softer.

"How are you not hungover?" he asked gruffly, shuffling further into the kitchen and beginning to rummage around in the cupboards, presumably looking for something to eat. Or aspirin.

I just shrugged, snapping the coffeemaker's lid shut and turning my attention to a search for mugs. Mr. Coffee burbled away companionably behind us. "Puked three times in the night," I confessed. "Plus my head feels like it's been a four-night venue for Riverdance, but other than that, I'm good. You?"

He didn't answer, just held out his find: a pair of white china mugs.

I smiled.

We had coffee together, Daryl and I, and a cigarette. The slight awkwardness of yesterday, when I had leaned against him outside the doors of the CDC and he'd jerked away - that was gone. We were back where we worked: alone together. With others around us, there was judgement and innuendo; when it was just the two of us, he was less shy and I more comfortable. I didn't have to justify anything to Daryl, nor he to me. We could just smoke and chat idly and try to sift through whatever emotions were swirling around in our individual brains. There was no pressure to even speak. And I needed a friend like that.

He _was_ hungover, though. I read it in his bloodshot eyes, the whisky he poured into his coffee, and the way he shifted uncomfortably in his seat when I offered to make some scrambled eggs. "How are you okay?" he muttered, looking away as I deftly downed a protein bar I'd found in the pantry during my mug search.

"I'm a twenty-one year old college girl, baby."

It was meant to come out as a joke. We were both meant to fall about ourselves laughing inanely at the turn of phrase. We were supposed to be those kind of friends. The friends that joked and teased and possessed random pet names for each other - you know, like me and Chloe. She'd called me "sweetheart" and "princess" and "shit-for-brains," particularly when I'd pissed her off.

But tone is everything, and mine softened, despite myself, when I said the word "baby." So that it came off less "southern sorority girl" and more "term of endearment." And that made us both extremely uncomfortable.

My eyes widened as I realized what I'd said. His eyes widened as he realized what I'd said. Abruptly, there seemed to be something else in the kitchen with us, something other than that pungent mixture of coffee and smoke; something bigger and bolder and a little terrifying. He probably didn't know precisely what it was, but I could name it. I could read it, name it, sing it, hell - I could choreograph an interpretive dance to it. Present in the kitchen with us on that bleary-eyed, hungover morning was the very real and distinct possibility that I was falling for Daryl Dixon; or at least, that I very well _could_ find myself falling for him. It shifted and jostled us aside for room at the table.

He appeared to be acutely sensitive to the word I'd chosen, and I couldn't be surprised at that: the term held such promise for intimacy and tenderness. It felt ill at ease with our relationship thus far, and settled awkwardly into the contours of our physical situation. We didn't have time to call other people "baby," didn't have time to start a new relationship. For those who were blessed with pre-apocalyptic bonds, our current climate likely only served to heighten their feelings, intensify their affection. For us, though - a former college student and a thirty-something outdoorsman - we had no such luxury. We had to find food, shelter, eke out some semblance of a justice system. We had to take care of our group, keep our weapons at the ready, hunt down a new pack of cigarettes.

Yet I felt it. Flickering deep down inside of me, a part of my soul I thought had been shut off. My friendship with Daryl was of supreme importance to me, I'd begun to realize, despite its newness. I sought him out; he looked for me. We argued and fought, but we also advocated for one another. It was a strange thing, to think that in any other context, we likely would not have known each other's names, ever. If I'd seen in Daryl in downtown Atlanta, if we'd passed each other on the sidewalk, we probably wouldn't even have looked at each other. We came from two different worlds, two different generations, intent on divergent paths.

The potential for something more between us became quite comfortable in our presence that morning, though the two of were still uncertain, still awkward. For his part, Daryl stood to put another pot of coffee on, because somehow we'd managed to drink the equivalent of about six cups each that morning. The last cigarette smouldered between my shaky fingers, and I tried to forget.

* * *

We enjoyed breakfast together, one final meal in peace and hope before our new reality came sweeping through once more. Our day ended in loss and grief, and we drove. We drove for days and days, gradually paring down our convoy until I was clinging to Daryl on the back of Merle's motorcycle. We drove, with no clear goal other than "away" in mind.

And then we stopped.

We lost Sophia. A beautiful little child, her death broke something in each of us, irrevocably. Our world did not pull its punches for little girls.

We tried to carve something out in the green pastures of a Georgia farmstead. Some of us found love, others found justice, others found purpose. Together, we worked to create something important and new, something that would last us. Sustain us.

It didn't work.

Daryl and I fought the last day we were together. I was angry that he had allowed himself to be so violently used, to become nothing more than a furious pair of fists, reduced to aggression and intimidation. He was angry that I was still a bleeding heart, that I was so naive and stupid.

Our last night together rose as a column of flame, burning bright above the ashes of what should have been, who we could have been. And now, months later, it's his face that I see every night as I struggle to close my eyes. Not the fire. Not anyone else. Not poor Sophia. Not poor Dale. Not Shane.

Daryl Dixon. My biggest regret. My biggest loss.


	9. A Season Past

**Chapter IX: A Season Past**

"Damn it!"

I woke with a start, kicking away the tangle of my sleeping bag and sitting bolt upright to face the morning. "Michonne, why did you let me sleep in?"

In response, she just grinned. "You looked like you could use it." She was heating up a can of soup over a smoky fire; crouched in a fighting stance that was at distinct odds with her domestic occupation. "Feel better?"

Stretching, I deigned to confirm that she was right. Instead, I glanced over at our other companion. Andrea was still sound asleep, curled into the embrace of two sleeping bags. Her fever had abated slightly the day before; that she had slept well through the night was immensely reassuring. She sorely needed it.

Seven months we'd been together now, just the three of us. Seven months since the fire at the Greene farm, what had been my temporary home for several fairly blissful weeks. We had been making significant inroads with Hershel Greene, our reluctant host; finally managing to work our way from yard-bound tent-dwellers to squeezed-in-wherever-possible-to-avoid-imminent-danger houseguests. Though not much of an outdoorsy girl, I confess to quite enjoying my time there, not least because it had seen great strides in my relationship with Daryl.

He had become a different man during his time there. Still snarky, still lacking general finesse and charm - but so imbued with a sense of purpose, in his search for Sophia, Carol's daughter, who had gone missing after becoming separated from the group during a cross with a herd of walkers. Every day, Daryl had risen early, headed into the woods, and done what he could to locate girl. I had gone with him several times, and it was on these sombre journeys that I think we became much closer. Any ice between us was firmly broken when we were bucked from a horse and skidded down an embankment together. We'd both sustained injuries - mine a broken ankle, which made the climb back up the steep hill sloping down to the riverbed even more difficult. On our return, Daryl had been grazed by a bullet from an impulsive Andrea, so Hershel - our host and local vet, had put us on strict bed rest for a grand total of four days.

During those four days, Daryl and I had talked and talked. Smoked, too, of course, him crawling over to the flap in the middle of the night so the evidence would curl away into nothing while our camp-mates slept. He read books borrowed from Dale, sometimes out loud. I told him funny stories about Chloe and life at school before it had all gone to shit. He let me change his bandages, a huge leap forward in anything going on between us, as our physical intimacy was intensified.

But it all went to crap, as per usual. When Rick, Glenn, and Hershel encountered a young man who posed a substantial risk (if his former group was indeed headed our way), the decision of how best to handle the situation splintered the group. I sided with Dale, who argued that we couldn't simply descend into kill-or-be-killed, but should design a more just, responsible way of living and making moral choices. The others were frightened, angry - Daryl, perhaps, most of all. He had been sent to "get answers" from the young man, which left him with bloody knuckles and a bitter taste in his mouth. We fought.

Dale died.

I slept in Carol's tent.

The last words I said to him? "Go screw yourself."

I didn't like to think of that too often. Actually, I didn't really get too many opportunities to think about it, or him, or the group I was separated from the night the herd came through and the farm burned. Minutes after losing sight of Carol and Beth, Hershel's youngest daughter, I had tripped and fallen down the farm's well. I'd sprained my right arm and screwed up my still-healing ankle, as well as sustained what was almost certainly a mild concussion. I'd then had to dispatch the walker secreted in aforementioned well, before nearly ripping my vocal cords into pieces trying to catch someone's attention. I screamed everyone's name at least a hundred times each, to no avail. I heard the motors die away; the flames blew out as their fuel sources disappeared, and the world went quiet, save for the infernal hum of the walkers still milling about above me.

I passed in and out of consciousness, half-expecting walkers to begin tumbling down upon me. Later, Michonne guessed I had been in there for about six hours by the time she finally found me. Walking in the woods near the farm, she'd encountered Andrea first, and then decided to do a quick sweep of the area to check for other survivors. After an hour or so of work, she managed to help me climb out of the well. And then we started to walk.

Since then, my life had been one endless, wintry hike to nowhere. We wandered across most of southern Georgia, seeking shelter and more supplies; rarely stopping anywhere for more than a couple of days. The three of us were accompanied by Michonne's...let's call them "attendants." Yes, her undead attendants. Bodyguards. Two armless, toothless walkers she'd chained and restrained - the mere scent of them being enough to drive away potential threats, who simply assumed we too were inedible.

We walked. And we walked.

I came to understand quickly that Michonne was, in a word, fascinating. She had an incredible skill with her katana; lightning-fast reflexes; tracking instincts to rival Daryl's. She was also abrupt and cynical, but I found her abrasiveness comforting - it kept me from getting too soft, too emotional about our losses. A kinship grew between us, bolstered by those long months of cold, isolation, risk, and struggle. Andrea was more susceptible to feelings of anger and resentment, but for my part, I just kind of carried on. Yes, I grieved for my group; yes, there was some anger involved in that process. I sometimes dreamt I was still in the well, calling endlessly for Daryl and Rick and Lori and Shane and Maggie and Glenn and just watching them walk on and on, far away from me, because they didn't care. "Good riddance," Daryl said in my dreams.

"Never liked her much anyways," Lori sneered. And on and on.

I tried to push the dreams away, focusing on our daily needs. I had to find new weapons - my .45 had been left behind in the well; Rick had asked to borrow my knife the day before the herd came through. On my second day with Michonne and Andrea, we raided an empty house out on the highway - under the floorboards of a bedroom, I found a Ladysmith, a couple of knives, and three packs of ammo. We also found a hefty cache of canned goods, and lived off of peaches and peas for about three weeks.

As the winter drew on, we accumulated a few more supplies, but routinely tried to pare down our hauls in order to keep things light and moveable. I never asked Michonne why we didn't just hole up in that first house we found, and Andrea was too distraught to even consider it. Over the first couple of months, we stayed a few nights each at various locations - houses, a dental office, a pancake restaurant, a car dealership and once, a former indoor trampoline facility. I'd been eager to stay there, but we'd moved on after a whole eight nights.

Truth was, I didn't really care that we kept moving. Since the world went to shit, every time I had tried to make a home, so far, had ended badly. The college, the road, the quarry, the CDC, and then the farm - fear, blood, and death got laid at our door sooner or later. The farm had been the hardest loss thus far, though, because we'd been _so_ settled. Waking up each morning in our tent, I'd rolled over to look at Daryl on his cot at the other end and smiled, remembering what it had been like to wake up to Chloe. To have someone there, someone to eat breakfast with or make coffee for; someone to spend your day alongside. We'd been on the verge of creating some semblance of community there, something really special. You could almost taste it on the air. Sure, Hershel Greene was a little standoffish, but our differences were gradually melting away as he and his family came to realize that the walkers weren't actually capable of being healed. His daughters, Maggie and Beth, had been much more receptive to us becoming a part of their home, and I'd kind of bonded with them both. It had been nice to be around girls nearer my own age once again.

Yet here I was. Despite all that hope, all those unspoken promises, all those mornings with Daryl - here I was: trudging through the woods all day every day, actively trying to push away memories that made me cringe with equal parts frustration and misery. I tried to focus on supplies, on keeping Andrea "with us," on connecting with Michonne. I tried to forget.

* * *

We let Andrea sleep for another hour, but then we had to get moving. I hated being exposed like this, just sleeping out in the open, one person at a time on watch. Finding a house or just some sort of shelter with at least three walls and a roof would be grand. Our supplies were running low, too - Michonne and I split a can of chicken noodle soup and saved the Spaghetti-Os for Andrea when she finally managed to wake up. After that, we'd be down to a can of peas and a jar of applesauce.

We were packed up by around nine. I shrugged my shoulders into the backpack I'd found in a dumpster back in January. Half-frozen, it had finally thawed to reveal some questionable stains but no odour, so I'd taken it and stocked it full of the few extra clothes we'd scavenged along with our water bottles. The bag became a reassuring weight upon my back each day, and every slosh of water that issued from each step I took simply served to comfort me with the reminder that, if nothing else, we wouldn't die of thirst.

As we began our descent down the sloped, wooded trail we'd made our home the nights, I reached into the pocket of my positively disgusting jeans to fish out a gradually-dwindling pack of cigarettes. The habit I'd acquired during my first few days with Daryl hadn't yet managed to be kicked, despite the threat of limited supplies. Smoking kills, I know, I know - but so did everything else in my world, so why not indulge in something that, however gross and debilitating, reminded me of better days and people I missed?

"Those things'll kill you," Mich muttered, picking her way through a particularly thick patch of undergrowth. Her attendants stumbled after her, one almost tumbling to the ground as we ascended to the lip of the asphalt of the highway we'd finally managed to pinpoint the day before. I was thrilled at the prospect of a break from the woods. Daryl would be so disappointed in me.

My response was a long drag and a grinning exhale. "Yeah, I've heard that."

It was the closest thing we had to an inside joke. Every morning, during my first smoke, Michonne would make some sort of general comment about how they were going to be the death of me; and then I would reply glibly, and continue on with my filthy habit. Between us, tangled amidst that smoke, there was a silent footnote to the entire exchange: why on Earth should I worry about something as small as a cigarette, when around us, legion in number, walked the eating machines whose sole instinct was to rip me limb from limb?

"Andrea?" All at once, it seemed, I became aware that our third companion was no longer keeping up. I whirled around to see that she was at least ten yards behind us. "Andrea!"

Her hands were cold to the touch; her face hot. She was sweating and shaking and I knew the fever was back in full force. But we couldn't afford to stop, not for too long. I called Michonne back and together we managed to ease Andrea back down to the ground. "She needs rest," I observed inanely, though she'd just woken up. Mich just shook her head, wordlessly saying what I already knew too well: we didn't have the luxury of rest. I felt a surge of frustration towards her, all apathy towards our routine suddenly gone. We needed to settle; we should've stayed at the trampoline park. Thick concrete walls, a huge open space, good visibility down the road - plus, trampolines and a foam pit. We could've liked queens there. But no, we just _had_ to move on.

Something snapped. Maybe hunger, maybe exhaustion, maybe the fact that I hadn't had a good coffee in eight months - but I just started to yell. At Andrea, at Michonne, at the attendants, at the sky. I was pissed off and tired, and scared of having a severely ill woman on my hands. And so I just kept yelling.

Mich just let me go. She'd seen it all happen before. Andrea had had a similar breakdown early on. Everything just built up and piled on and then it just got too heavy. And what do you do when things get too heavy? You throw them off, shift them into somebody else's hands. You don't give a shit about then anymore. So that's what I did. I flung out my worries and my anxieties and my tired, aching brain and I let them fall where they wanted. I just didn't want them anymore.

It's happened to me before - that I'll get so worked up about something I become lost in my own misery, so wrapped up in whatever I'm feeling I essentially forget there's a broader world around me. In moments like these, any occurrence or event somehow gets sucked into my own swirling vortex of emotion, so that I initially consider it to be somehow of my doing. You know, you're in a fight with your brother and the doorbell rings and you think, "Oh God, did I really summon the devil when I accused him of being demon spawn?"

So when I heard the crash far off into the distance, I thought I'd somehow brought it about. As though my rage had plucked the helicopter right out of the sky and tossed it into the woods below. It wasn't until Michonne and Andrea started walking towards the source of the acrid smoke billowing nearby that I stowed my shit and followed.

Together, we made our way further into the thick band of trees surrounding some sort of clearing - though whether it had been there three minutes ago or had been formed by the crashed helicopter now sitting at the centre of it, I couldn't quite tell. We crouched together in the foliage, peering in to see that the wreckage was still smouldering: huge, gnarled chunks of metal arranged like some sort of dying aluminum cornucopia.

Bad analogy. My apologies.

Initially, it didn't occur to me that it was extremely strange and unexpected to have encountered a helicopter at all, let alone witness one careening from the sky. Typical vehicles - cars, motorcycles, and the like - were rare enough to see on the roads these days, and whenever she heard the low rumble of one, however far away, Michonne instinctively sought a hidden vantage point from which to assess the interlopers. Ten times out of ten (thus far), Mich had decided not to pursue any sort of interaction with any of these vehicles or their occupants, citing lurid scenarios in which we three suffered all manner of horrifying fates at the hands of raving lunatics driving around in dusty Suburbans and minivans. Most of them, I figured, were just trying to survive, to find something better. And it was only about one or two vehicles a month that we did actually encounter.

And for each of those damn things, I'd tasted a sweet explosion of hope on my tongue, like so many new strawberries. Was it _my_ group? _My_ family? Were we about to be saved, properly and finally?

It never was.

The rarity of these occurrences was significantly outweighed by the uniqueness of this situation: a helicopter. I hadn't seen or heard any sort of aircraft since the start, since the military planes stopped flying over the city. To see one seemed wholly anachronistic, and I struggled to comprehend its presence, its reality.

It smelled bad - a little like burning rubber. It fairly burned my nostrils as I breathed it in (and then briefly wondered if I should be breathing it in at all). I broke my gaze away from the metallic carnage, however, as I heard the sound of Andrea retching behind me. She vomited on the forest floor, and then began to sway where she knelt. "Hey!" I caught her, eased her into a sitting position, and then readjusted the blanket around her shoulders. To Michonne, I voiced a concern that we should move away, that we needed to be elsewhere, but she just held up a hand.

"Don't push yourself," she told Andrea, digging in the backpack for a bottle of water. "You'd better just sit."

I tipped the water to Andrea's lips as Michonne tied her attendants to a nearby tree. "I'll check it out," she said quietly, looking far away over my head to the crash site.

My surprise wasn't exactly warranted. Michonne had this naturally curious disposition, this wilfulness that sometimes exceeded her common sense. Anytime we encountered anything even remotely interesting, however potentially risky, she was first up to explore, to peruse, to poke it with a stick. A damn miracle we were all still alive, I thought grimly, as I brushed Andrea's face away from her sweat-slick face. A damn miracle.

The engine's rumble started in my chest, it seemed. The vehicles - SUVs and a Jeep, I think - broke through the tree-line on the other side of the clearing, where it was largely saplings and brush. "Someone's coming!" Michonne was tense as she came back to our vantage point, kneeling down beside us again.

* * *

"Does it hurt?" The expression Daryl bore told me he fully understood he had just asked a stupid question, but I was touched that he was still concerned. I examined my ankle, still elevated on a pillow at the end of my cot, and noted that the swelling had indeed gone significantly.

It had been a week since our tumble down the ravine. Daryl was all but fully recovered from his multitude of injuries, but I'd overdone it in the woods this afternoon and had somehow exacerbated or inflamed my still-sore ankle. Our day had ended with me limping from the field supported between Glenn and T-Dog. Hershel had roundly scolded me for rushing my recovery, and I was now grounded in my tent, as far as I could tell. Hershel had given me strict instructions to keep my foot elevated and still for at least another two days. The prospect was frustrating, but there were plenty of small jobs around the camp that I could help out with, so at least I needn't worry about spending those two days cooped up alone in the tent.

Evening was falling outside, and it promised to be a crisp, cool night. Fall was here in earnest, quickly fading into winter. I'd experienced two Georgia winters thus far, and, coming from the north, I must say - they did little to impress me. Minimal snow, much complaining, and nippy Januarys. Nevertheless, Daryl had brought us two extra blankets, at Carol's insistence, he explained, draping the thicker of the two over me. I shifted slightly to better recline on my pillows. "It's fine," I said, in reply to his query about my ankle. "I think it'll be okay tomorrow, but I can stick around camp. Maggie mentioned something about peas...maybe I could shell some or something."

We'd had no luck finding Sophia that day, and our lack of success (combined with one or two other incidents) was beginning to weigh heavily on all the searchers. Daryl's passionate conviction, though, that the little girl was still out there, waiting on us - that served to quite solidly spur us all on, even when our own certainty waned. But it was an exhausting experience: trudging through the woods day in and day out, dodging walkers and losing hope with each step. Nights were hardest, as I pushed away the thoughts of that poor kid trying to find someplace soft and safe to sleep, feeling guilty as I pulled my blanket tighter around me, nuzzling deeper into my pillow. How could I sleep in such luxury while Sophia suffered?

I rubbed at my temples as Daryl kicked off his shoes. "Sorry," he muttered, as he always did, but it was mere force of habit as we were both used to the smell. Our daily expeditions left us sweaty, dirty, and tired at the end of the day, and even though I was sure our bedclothes were growing something microscopic and foul, it was such a blessed relief just to collapse in them by nightfall that I could care less about how bad we both stunk. We really gave a shit, anyways? I used deodorant, pretty sure he did, too - we did our best.

The tension headache, though, _that_ I could do without. Daryl noticed my discomfort, though, and within a few seconds he had a cigarette in my hand his lighter flicked and at the ready. "Thanks." I smiled, bringing it to my lips and taking a deep drag. "Is it bad if I say I needed it?"

He didn't say anything, just started pulling back the few blankets he used and crawling in between them. I could tell that the lack of results about Sophia were severely weighing on him, so I decided that chitchat was probably best taken off the table. I reached over to hand him the cigarette. Together, we listened to the low murmur of voices around the fire outside, and we fell asleep - apart, but together.

* * *

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	10. Walk With Me

**_Chapter X: Walk With Me_**

The soft, reiterating _thump_ of a washing machine was a sound I never knew I had missed: a veritable symphony of comfort and purpose. It was making me sleepy.

Stretched out on the hospital bed, I probably could've drifted right off, save for that niggling little awareness somewhere deep in my brain...what was it? A faint, fading memory now; I was warm and safe and my clothes were being cleaned…

" _Uh-uh-uh! Easy does it, girl. Mine's a whole lot bigger'n yours...Now, how's about a big hug for your old pal, Merle?_ "

Right.

That.

"Oh, shit," I grumbled, rubbing my forehead and trying to sit up. Across the room, Andrea lay prone on a bed just like mine; my eyes flashed to the corner, where Michonne stood, glowering. We were in some sort of a medical room, a clinic or small infirmary. It was clean and well-lit, but there were only two small windows, an observation which immediately sent shivers of panic down my spine. After so many months sleeping out in the open, with the occasional few nights in an abandoned house or building, the prospect of being so enclosed was overwhelming. I finally managed to ease myself up into a sitting position, a movement which made Michonne start and approach.

"Easy," she muttered.

The story came out over a glass of water and an aspirin. As we had hidden in the clearing, watching the fallout from the helicopter crash, a vehicle had approached to tend to the victims. By the time Michonne had returned to us and we'd finally gotten moving, one member of the new group had caught up with us. Never having actually seen him before, I didn't get the chance to be formally introduced before Andrea collapsed, overwhelmed by the sound and sight of Merle Dixon.

I'd fallen just a few seconds later. Weeks of rough living and poor nutrition had finally caught up with me, and the shock of realizing that we had just encountered another group for the first time in months - one of the members of which I'd assumed was long dead - simply exhausted my mind. Or so Dr. Stevens, the medic who came in after hearing voices, explained. "It's not surprising, sweetheart," she said, gently removing the IV from my hand. "You're young and strong, but certainly not invincible." With some good food and rest, though, you'll be better in no time."

Andrea was slightly worse off than I; her recent illness had taken quite a lot of strength from her. But Dr. Stevens had much the same prescription for her as she had given me: rest and food. It seemed simple enough, and I felt my entire body relax with the fading-away of that weighty concern I had been bearing for weeks, wondering if Andrea was going to die from her sickness; if we would lose her in the night; if she would turn and kill one of us. All of those anxieties simply melted away. I was calm.

My friends, however, were not.

"Why are we being held here?" Andrea asked, forcefully twisting her arm away from the doctor's kind hands. "We want to leave!"

A flash of anger ignited in my belly; how dare she speak for me? I didn't yet know if I wanted to stay, but I at least wanted to find out more about this place, and I certainly did not need someone else making choices for me. "You're not well enough!" Dr. Stevens was trying to strike a vocal balance of equal parts calm and insistence, but it wasn't working; she too was obviously frustrated with her hostile charges. "And it's dark. You should stay the night."

"Where are we?"

The doctor sighed, looked from Michonne to me. "That's not for me to say. He'll talk to you." Whoever "he" was, I gathered he was in charge.

Michonne asked a further question, the one we all needed to have answered: "Who?"

The door swung open then, almost as though the person who entered had been waiting on the other side for an appropriate cue. The man who joined us was tall, bald, and wholly intimidating - and familiar. It was Merle Dixon, Daryl's erstwhile-missing elder brother. "Go and check on your patient, doc," he grunted, jerking his chin towards the door. Dr. Stevens gave us a small, reassuring smile, but she had nothing, however, to be nervous about: despite Merle's threatening stance, Michonne was more than capable of disarming him, even without her katana.

He sauntered further into the room after the doctor shut the door behind her, idly picking up a few supplies and visibly weighing the air in the space. Two other men had entered the room with him - tall, imposing, impassive. Lackeys, I thought dismissively. Their entrance gave me a chance to size Merle up. He was quite different from Daryl: older, of course, but there was something deeper, something a little more frightening that set the two brothers apart. Whereas Daryl's face often held a curious mixture of bravado and vulnerability, hinting at deep memories of pain - Merle's face was sardonic and cruel. I could see it, twisted into the recesses of his lined, sun-baked visage. I read the story of pain, both endured and inflicted, in his eyes and his swift, forceful movements.

"Bet you was wondering if I was real!" Merle levelled a grin at Andrea, who looked simply disgusted. He didn't so much as glance at either Michonne or I, but that made sense, I realized with a jolt: he didn't have a clue who either of us was. Merle didn't know that I was his brother's friend, that we'd shared a truck and a bike and a tent for months. "Probably hoping I wasn't," he continued. "Well, here I am. I guess this old world gets a little small towards the end, huh?"

Merle pulled his doctor's swivel chair over and straddled it, that same stupid grin plastered on his face. Though Andrea had refused to reply thus far, he kept talking: "Ain't so many of us left to share the air, right? You know, when they found me, I was near bled out, starving, thinking to myself a bullet might make a good last meal. Take myself a nice long nap after, wait for Daryl on the other side. You seen my brother?"

My eyes flickered over to Andrea, who just shook her head. "Not for a long time."

"Makes two of us."

"He went back for you," Andrea insisted. "Him and Rick, and Riley here. You were already gone."

At the mention of my name, Merle finally seemed to take notice of us. He smiled broadly at me. "Yeah, well, not all of me! Eh, darling?" He raised his right forearm which ended, sickeningly, in some sort of metal encasement. A silvery blade winked at the tip.

"Oh, God…" Andrea sounded as though she was about to be sick.

Merle just laughed at our horrified expressions. "Yeah...Rick. He's that prick that cuffed me to the rooftop."

At that, I tensed, loyalty singing through my every nerve. Even after months apart, my respect for Rick Grimes had not waned one iota. How dare he, honestly? From the story we had been told - corroborated by multiple parties - Merle had been out of control up on that rooftop, a threat to everyone present. Rick had only done what was needed, and both he and T-Dog had then done what they could to rectify the mistake that had been made. They had never meant for him to be trapped up there, never dreamed he would have to resort to such drastic measures.

"Yeah, he tried," Andrea replied. "Daryl saw that."

Though it irritated me to acknowledge it, Merle's face visibly softened at the mere mention of his brother. "He's always been the sweet one, my baby brother."

Daryl had sobbed on that rooftop, almost killed T when he'd spotted his brother's amputated on the ground. His tortured expression was still vivid in my memory, emblazoned on my mind, and I realized that my abject disdain for this man in front of me did absolutely nothing to counter the fact that Daryl loved and adored him. It bit me, somehow, to realize how happy would be if he were in my place here on this bed. The experience was wasted on me.

"He wanted to keep looking," Andrea explained, shifting where she sat. "Then things happened, people died. A lot of them." Her eyes met mine. "Jim, Dale, Jacqui, Sophia...Amy."

"Your sister?"

Andrea nodded. "Yes." It was the first time I'd really heard her speak about Amy since her death. I suppose that, like me with Jacqui, the weight of Amy's absence had always been with Andrea, but with so many other battles to fight, it had quickly become a private mourning. Jacqui and I had not been sisters, not even tremendously close, but her warmth and kindness had brought me so much comfort in my early days with the group that her death - though it was quick and entirely on her terms - left me confused and not a little angry in the time that followed. But then Sophia had gone missing and we'd found the farm and there had been more confusion and more anger and suspicion and sadness and grief. Keeping it all straight in my mind had been enough of an onerous task; so soon Jacqui's name slipped from my vocabulary and her memory from the primary functioning of my mind. It was only in dreams or quiet moments, my hands busy with a boring task or in those first bleary moments of consciousness in the morning, that I would think of her, hear her voice and remember the night she'd laughed at me while I was drunk and had braided my wet hair.

"She was a good kid," Merle was saying. "I'm sorry to hear it."

And he genuinely sounded sorry. Looked it, too. I found myself warming to him slightly, for his sincere grief for someone other than Daryl. Amy had been a nice girl and surely, for this big, burly bastard to recognize that, there must be some redeeming quality squirrelled away inside him, right?

"There were more," Andrea said. "A lot more. We had to leave Atlanta, we wound up on a farm. Daryl stepped up, became a valued member of the group."

Instead of smiling, as I'd hoped he would, Merle just scoffed. "And now he's dead."

His words were a slap in the face, and I was suddenly, abruptly, passionately enraged. "Shut up!" I struggled to get off the bed, fully intent on smacking him across the face the way he'd basically just done me. I wanted that stupid-ass grin struck away; I wanted him in pain, wanted him to feel what I was feeling - that burning, aching loneliness firing through my veins. Gone was any hope for "redeeming qualities," - this guy was an asshole, and he needed to know tht. "He's not dead, he's not!"

Michonne wrapped her arms around me, keeping me firmly on the bed, murmuring my name as Merle slapped his knee with his remaining hand. Andrea simply looked aghast at my reaction. "I don't know that for sure," she said slowly, looking away. "We got run off by a herd."

I couldn't help it; I began to cry. Vocally, with tears streaming down my face, great heaving sobs that sang of the memories of that night. Flames licking the night sky; screams erupting from every corner of the farm. Far, away, fading into nothing, nothing but the faint roar of a motorcycle.

"Oh, shit, darling - you knew him?" Merle's voice was soft again, tender and kind. Hiccuping, I met his gaze, hoping for some brand of comfort. I nodded. "Were you sleeping with him?" he asked, and his eyes danced with a devilish amusement. In response, my face flushed hot, and I looked away, down at the floor as though its tiles were the most fascinating things I'd ever seen in my life, choking back my remaining sobs. Andrea chuckled slightly at his question and Michonne cleared her throat. Merle, however, was still talking, the absolute douchebag: "I only ask, girl, because you're exactly his type. You know, 'cause you got a pulse."

No one laughed at that. My embarrassment was so acute that I became aware of it in every physical way possible: there it was in the tips of my fingers; the greasy strands of my hair; I could taste it on my tongue, bitter as gall; I smelled mortification in the recesses of the room, knowing it was billowing from me, an unwelcome perfume. Merle's jibe at hit at a fundamental anxiety underpinning my relationship with Daryl: that I wasn't as special to him as he was to me.

"What do you want from us?" Andrea was still talking, still chatting away and gathering information as though my heart and dignity hadn't just been trampled. Her question now caused Merle to laugh, slap his knee again, and gesture around the room in only partially-feigned incredulity as he replied.

"There she sits, four walls around her, roof over her head, medicine in her veins, and she wants to know what I want from her." He wiped away an imaginary tear of amusement. "I plucked you, the kid, and your mute here out of the dirt, blondie. How 'bout a 'thank you?'"

"You had a gun on us!" Michonne interjected, her voice gravelly from both disuse and, almost certainly, rage.

But Merle just chuckled again. Daryl once told us that his brother was so tough you could "feed him a hammer and he'd crap out nails," and now, I actually had cause to believe him. I mean, the whole DIY amputation was probably the primary indicator here, but the fact that he laughed in the face of Michonne's vicious and tangible anger - katana or not - that proved to me right there that Daryl hadn't been speaking from mere brotherly adoration. This guy was fucking tough.

"Oh, she speaks!" he crowed. "Well, who ain't had a gun on 'em in the past year, huh? Show of hands, y'all? Anybody? Shumpert? Crowley?" - here he gestured to the two men standing just near the doorway, whom I'd essentially forgotten about - "Y'all had a gun on y'all? Hell, I think I'd piss my pants if some stranger came walking up with his mitts in his pockets. That'd be the son of a bitch you'd really want to be scared of."

"Thank you!" Andrea said abruptly. Evidently, she suspected he was about to launch into an extensive treatise on the various risks associated with post-outbreak life, and to be honest, I was grateful for her intercession. The aspirin had helped, but I needed a rest from all stimuli - my mind, not my brain, was aching. Merle nodded at Andrea's interjection, though I caught a glimpse of Mich's expression out of the corner of my tired eye, and I realized that she bore one of disappointment. What had she expected, though, really? We couldn't very well afford to antagonize the people who had just medicated us, could we? We needed to play this safe and smart. And buttering up the ones in charge? That's a damn good way to live for a few more hours.

The door opened and another man walked in. Taller than Merle, almost rangy in his bearing, I recognized him from our brief surveillance of the helicopter crash. He was almost certainly in charge: I read it in his confidence, the smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, and the cold conviction of his gestures. Nothing about him was overly reassuring, and yet there was something magnetic emanating from this new arrival. I felt a curl of revulsion in my stomach, coupled with a compulsion to hear every single word he had to say.

"How are you feeling?" He had a therapist's voice, all smooth and southern, sweet and warm and deep. His concern seemed to envelop us there in the room, to draw us closer, and despite myself, I smiled at his care. I wanted to nod, to continue the conversation, but was interrupted before I'd even begun by Michonne, who snapped out a demand that our weapons be returned to us.

"Sure," the man replied. "On your way out of the front gates."

"Show us the way," Andrea added. "You've kept us locked in this room."

The man just smiled, generously. "You see any bars on the windows? You're being cared for."

"Under guard!"

"To protect our people; we don't know you." Even Michonne had to admit, that was logical. At the farm, numerous debates had taken place to determine whether or not it was a good idea for us to carry around our guns. I understood this man's trepidation: this was his community, his home. The only things he knew about us? That we were dehydrated and dangerous, armed to the teeth with guns, knives, and a goddamn katana.

But Andrea - stupid, impulsive Andrea - kept digging. "We know enough about you to want out of this place. We watched you drive a knife into the skulls of two dead men, what the hell was that about?"

A faint memory rose before my eyes: the victims of the helicopter crash, strewn amongst the wreckage; this man pushing a blade into the base of their skulls. I shivered.

"They turned," the man said simply.

"They weren't bitten," Michonne protested, taking a few steps toward him, daring him to deny it again. He didn't - though he did exchange a knowing look with Merle. I didn't like that look, as though we did not understand as much as we should.

The man fixed what I'm sure he thought were kind eyes back upon us, and he wrecked our world. "It doesn't matter," he said, in that smooth voice of his. "However we die, we all turn. I put them out of their misery. It's not easy news to swallow at first, but there it is. Now, you're not prisoners here, you're guests. But if you wanna leave, as I said, you're free to do so." He smiled broadly. "But we don't open the gates past dusk. Draws too much attention. And you two especially" - he levelled a look of genuine concern at Andrea and myself - "you need a solid night of sleep. "You wouldn't last another day out there in your condition. I'll have you brought over to my place in the morning, hand over your weapons, extra ammo, food for the road, some meds, keys to a vehicle if you want one. Send you on your way, no hard feelings."

I looked at Michonne - her face smooth, impassive, utterly untranslatable. It sounded nice, to be honest. A few nights of peace and rest, some time to heal; the safety of a vehicle around us and the speed to move away from unpleasant situations. Food and ammo - that was icing on the cake. But Michonne didn't seem to be particularly moved. The lure of this man's promises was wasted on her. But for me and Andrea, it sounded damn good, and I told him so.

He smiled.

And we walked with him.

* * *

In my dreams, they are walkers. I wake with a whimper, the sleeper's scream.

* * *

"You know, everybody was wondering about that...the two of you." Andrea grinned, as though her words weren't causing me heaps of embarrassment. I just continued to slice the tomatoes we were having for lunch, hoping my face hadn't turned the same bright shade of red. "Were you? Sleeping together, I mean."

I didn't answer. Just chopped a little more forcefully.

"Leave her alone, Andrea." Michonne was sitting in the corner, folding a new supply of clean clothing we'd been given the day before. So far, Woodbury had proven to be some sort of Elysium for us - a magical place where clean clothes and fresh vegetables abounded, where people had ice in their drinks and enjoyed barbecues every Sunday night. The walls of the town were thick and high; the guards stern and constant. I found myself relaxing for the first time in months, sleeping through most of the past three nights and even cracking out a smile every now and then. With the exception of Andrea's persistent plucking at a sensitive topic, that of the nature of my relationship with Daryl Dixon, life was going fairly well.

She'd brought it up soon after our walk with the Governor, an occasion upon which we'd been introduced to our temporary haven and its rules and regulations. I had no complaints about their leader just yet - the Governor seemed like a careful, affable, and effective leader, and had been nothing but warmly civil to his three newest dependents - and the town suited me just fine as a home for now. I was engaged in a constant internal debate about the merits of staying on beyond a week, and knew full well that a more vocal parley was about to erupt between myself and my friends. At our first meeting, the Governor's honeyed tones (combined with a good dosage of pain meds) had rendered me tremendously amenable to, essentially, anything he said, and honestly, if the man had sent me out to look for the Holy Grail, I probably would've packed a few protein bars and been on my merry way. But that was then, in the dim haze of shock and exhaustion, and I was no longer so pathologically complaisant.

Andrea's plucking was a big part of my reasoning for leaving. It brought back memories of the farm, and the brief life we'd started to build there. We'd set up our tents and cooked our breakfasts and struggled to eke out some sort of a fledgling judicial system - but none of that had mattered when the herd came through. This world belonged wholeheartedly and irrevocably to the dead, and we were just snacks strolling through. We needed to accept the fact that prey did not have the luxury of weekly barbecues or cool drinks. We needed to survive.

Add to that: Andrea had become extremely annoying.

She'd been pestering me for days about whether or not Daryl and I had been having sex at the farm. Thus far, I'd managed to dodge her questions as artfully as possible, but I was sorely tempted to begin crafting lurid tales of our woodland escapades, just to wipe the smirk off her face and shut her the hell up. But no, here we were again. Having the same tired conversation. I slammed down the plate of salted tomatoes and cucumbers with a sigh. "Enjoy," I said venomously.

Her interview continued during lunch. I sipped at my water primly and chose to ignore her. She even started chattering to a wholly disinterested Michonne about Daryl: she made him out to be an embittered redneck, out of control and irritating. When she did say something kind about him, it was only to stroke her own ego, a practice of which she was fond - "I convinced him to put down a walker that was hanging from a tree; it was the right thing to do" - and she left out great swathes of detail, items of interest that did wonders to improve a sketch of character.

Yes, he was cranky. Yes, he was impatient. Yes, his brother was a drug-addicted piece of racist shit. But Daryl was different, positively brimming with previously untapped potential for great kindness and generosity. He just needed the right context to prove it.

I countered her points about his emergence from the woods - bloody and bearing a necklace of walker ears, admittedly not his finest moment visually - with a sharp remark about the fact that she had impulsively shot at him seconds later, after multiple direct orders not to fire because we could not afford to waste the ammo on lone walkers. Add to that, he had just spent the day trekking through the forest in search of little Sophia. And, that had been the day we'd both tumbled into a ravine and Daryl had had to drag my sprained-ankle-ass two miles home. He'd left me there at the tree-line that day (at my insistence), had kept on going with the aim of alerting Rick, Shane, or T-Dog to my presence so that I could be carried the rest of the way.

As Andrea blustered a retort, I thought back to his hands on my arms in the fading afternoon light, his parting words faint and disconnected now in my memory. I had liked the way he gripped me, forced me to look in his eyes, knowing my concussion was bad and hating to leave me alone even for a second - but he wanted that connection. Me knowing he hated to leave me, but realizing, at my words, that it was for the best. He had been so exhausted, and he'd half-dragged, half-carried me so far already. But it was his hands on my arms and his eyes boring into mine that had sent that real shot of the pleasantest type of fear through me: did he feel for me what I was starting to feel for him?

He had such nice eyes.

"Shut up, Andrea, for five minutes, please!"

The words were so needed and so _me_ that it took a second for me to realize they hadn't slipped from my mouth. Mich had her hands gripped behind her on the edge of our kitchenette countertop, her face a knot of exasperation and murderous intent. Andrea spent an entire thirty seconds practicing her best impression of a stunned goldfish, blinking intermittently and rounding her mouth for words she couldn't formulate. Eventually, she managed to sputter out something about a walk, and left with a slammed door and a bucket-load of implied expletives.

Michonne made coffee.

She sipped it in silence, and I smoked. Just the day before, Merle had supplied me with the cigarettes. I'd offhandedly mentioned a nicotine craving, and a few minutes later, he'd appeared with four packs in hand. Despite the distaste I felt for him, I offered to trade him something for the stuff, but he just made a slightly lewd comment about me being a good friend to his brother, implying that I'd somehow provided services for Daryl that went above and beyond the call of duty, and that had been that. I was grateful, strangely, for what I perceived as a small kindness, and for the reassuring, comforting scent of the acrid smoke which now surrounded me. It had been days since my last one.

Uncharacteristically, Michonne made no comment about my habit, simply shaking her head when I asked if she minded. For the first time, I wondered if she had smoked before, or had been close to someone who had. Did the smell remind her, as it did me, of happier days?

I poured myself a mug of coffee once my cigarette had burnt away to nothing in the plate I used as an ashtray. Neither of us spoke. Silence was good for Mich and I; it was how we understood each other best. I could read her expressions and she mine; we said a thousand words in the crook of an eyebrow. Sometimes I wondered how on Earth we'd gotten to this place so quickly, this subtle language of something more than a typical friendship. Within moments of her retrieving me from the bottom of that well, we'd been moving together fluidly and intuitively across an open field occupied by a few straggling walkers. We fought together perfectly, as though we'd been doing it for years.

And that was how it was now, in the warm glow of our new home, with four walls and a roof around us, food in the cupboards and our bellies; soft beds to sleep in and no immediately perceivable need for weapons. It was as close to contentment as we were likely to get. But acknowledging that apparently meant it was time to dredge up old memories. "You've never mentioned him," she said, finishing the last of her drink. "Did he...I mean...did you…"

"Did he die? Did I sleep with him?" I continued jerkily, abruptly fishing in the pack for another cigarette. "Did he leave me behind on the farm? Does he miss me? What, Michonne, what would you like to know?" Dimly, the sensible part of my mind was chastising the impulsive portion for my rudeness. My responses were were terse, punctuated with unsaid warnings along the lines of ' _do not proceed with this line of inquiry_ 'and ' _mind your own fucking business_.' Mich and I had been on excellent terms since we'd met, but I really didn't want to go here with her. I didn't want to go here with anyone.

Ever since that last night on the farm, I'd been steadily pushing away questions and suspicions that caused me nothing but heartache. My options were this: either Daryl had left me behind, or he was dead. I knew nothing would stop him from returning to the farm in the morning light to search for survivors among the spent and charred walkers who had terrorized us; I knew that he would fight tooth and nail to check on those who hadn't rendezvoused with the others. I knew he would check the well - or at that he would've at least called my name. But he never had. So either he didn't care, or he wasn't alive to do so.

With a sigh, I exhaled a small cloud of smoke and then prematurely extinguished my cigarette. The apology I needed to say was sitting pretty on my tongue, all ready and poised to mend anything recently broken or strained between Michonne and I. But I left it there. "I don't know...maybe he's dead, maybe he's alive. I didn't sleep with him, I do know that. It...it just wasn't that, uh, way between us." I blinked away a few tears. "It's just...I kind of want to forget. Those memories seem like they belong to somebody else, and that's easier."

It was a bit like Chloe, who by this time had all but entirely faded into some dark little corner of my mind, reappearing in dreams only. Riley of long, long ago had loved a girl named Chloe, had cared for her when the world fell apart. But the Riley of now, the Riley of the forest and the Riley of the road, she was something else entirely. She was worlds away from the old Riley.

Sometimes I thought of myself as three distinct people, and that helped me to cope. There was college-and-Chloe Riley; then there was Daryl-and-the-farm Riley; and now there was me. Just me - hiking through the woods nad tramping out on the highway. Drinking peaches from cans and sharpening a knife by moonlight. Survival was my daily routine, so much so that I didn't have the luxury of time anymore. Back at the farm, I'd had time to think; at school, I'd had time to write. Those short autumn days out in the woods with Daryl were a distant memory, and I liked to keep them that way. That was for another me to enjoy; another me to question.

But Andrea's pestering had brought two Rileys together, and that was sitting uncomfortably on my chest. We itched together, couldn't get comfy. We were disparate and disjointed, unhappy bedfellows.

Michonne reached a slender hand across the table to cover my own. "I get it. You don't have to talk about him." She smiled. Michonne's smile was a funny, secretive thing. It appeared rarely, but softened her face so beautifully that you could extrapolate who she had been before. Elegant, sophisticated, witty, and kind - worlds away from the taciturn, stoic, sometimes acerbic warrior I knew now.

"It wasn't some grand love story," I muttered shyly. "It was just a crush, I guess...but it was something."

* * *

Summer days in Woodbury passed like those of my childhood: hot, languorous, and contemplative. I spent most mornings doing domestic tasks, and then filled my afternoons with getting to know the community. I liked it fine, but there was something lingering under the surface, I could just tell. It was too perfect, too safe.

Early on during our stay, we had had breakfast with the Governor and one of his men, a researcher called Milton Mamet. During the meal, Andrea had asked for his secret, his magic recipe for safety in a world gone completely to shit. "Really big walls," the Governor had replied glibly. And we'd all laughed politely. I knew, though, that that wasn't enough.

Always, since the beginning, I had lived with the risk of the world falling away beneath my feet. At the school, on the road, at the quarry, and at the farm - I'd fallen asleep only halfway, always with my ears primed for the slightest disruption. When I had gone about my daily tasks, it had been with the understanding that, at any moment, I would have to abandon it to seek safety or dash to the aid of someone else.

But at Woodbury, the citizens and the Governor together presented an idyllic, walker-free world. Fold your laundry in the morning, eat your breakfast, join the book club, do your job; keep it all running. I was placed in the logistics side of the operation, the Governor commending me on my organizational skills and good records keeping. I'm not sure how he figured this out, but Andrea said he'd mentioned something to hear about my "militaristic precision in domestic tasks." Basically, I kept our apartment clean, our beds made, and our meals well planned in advance. That, apparently, recommended me for a logistics position.

Once again, my time began to bear something that resembled productivity, beyond just the simple goals of surviving a day at a time. In the quiet moments in between those of purpose, however, cracks began to show. I disliked the sometimes bombastic attitude of several higher-ups within the community, in particular Merle, a man named Martinez, and the Governor himself. I suspected that any society which ratcheted Merle Dixon up several steps of the leadership hierarchy had flaws somewhere along the line, but little did I suspect that they were embedded right into its foundation.

Andrea grew closer to the Governor, beginning to spend more nights at his apartment than at ours. During the day, she strutted around Woodbury as though she hadn't once shot someone for her own distorted pride; as though she hadn't planned on leaving us in the middle of the night. I watched her from our window, as Michonne and I began to engage in long, detailed plans for our departure. I was grateful to be the people of Woodbury - yes, even the Governor - for their generosity in our rescue and the mending of three people they didn't know. But after almost a week, I figured we had more than repaid our stay in labour and participation. It was something Michonne had brought up early on, on our first day there, in fact - during a walk about town with Andrea, in her own special, tactful way, of course.

"I don't trust him," she snapped, after Andrea had made some comment about the Governor's generosity towards us. I looked down at my feet, hoping this wouldn't turn out to be the rumblings of a major blowout - but also fully aware that this discussion was past due, and it needed to happen soon. Despite my comfort, I had no desire to stay in Woodbury any longer than was absolutely necessary. I wanted to be back out on the road, taking my chances against a world I was facing head-on. No more walls for me. Walls allowed lies to breed.

"Why not?" Andrea crossed her arms defensively over her chest. "Have you ever trusted _anybody_?"

Michonne turned slowly, with a lifetime in her eyes. Who had she been before? I knew she was from Atlanta, guessed that she had occupied some formidable professional role - but I knew nothing of who she had come home to, what she had done for fun. Who had she loved, and who had loved her? That story, and hundreds more, sat rigidly between her and Andrea in this moment, and I waited nervously to see how it would all unfold.

"Yeah," came Michonne's reply, a strident thing. She was visibly on the defensive, her hackles raised to a fight. A wave of unabashed pity swept over me as I examined her: over the past several months, I'd come to think of her as a fierce, strong woman, made for this type of world. But now, she just looked angry and a little sad. Gone was the fierceness; gone was the courage. With just a few words, Andrea had dredged up a whole heaping of regret.

But in true Andrea fashion, she just ploughed on, oblivious to anything except her own opinion. "Then give this a day or two, that's all I'm asking. Some time to get our shit together."

We started walking again, further down this idyllic main street, haunting a world we could no longer corporeally inhabit, so it seemed. It was, however, a pleasant distraction, a way to spend an afternoon that offered a break from our usual survival-against-all-odds programming. "My shit never stopped being together," scoffed Michonne, kicking idly at a cobblestone.

"Didn't look that way when Milton asked about your walkers. I'm surprised he didn't get a fork in his eye." Andrea stopped to peer into a shop window. There were a few supplies on display: canned goods and some miscellaneous hardware. For my part, I simply avoided Michonne's eye and scanned the street for a fitting escape route. More and more these days, I found myself craving solitude, and in any event - with or without a sword, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that the woman standing beside me was, in a word, lethal.

Andrea was referring to the orientation breakfast we'd enjoyed that morning with the Governor and Milton Mamet, a scientist for the new world. The Governor had provided us with a wealth of information about Woodbury, but Milton had also asked some probing questions about our time in the woods. Those eight months of cold winter and a wet spring had been a hard time for all three of us: bookended by grief and illness. Our only real solace had been each other, and the reduced necessity for constant fighting and defence afforded to us by the presence of Michonne's walkers. I never asked where they had come from, why she had chosen to chain up two dead men and keep them by her side for months on end - I only knew that they were extremely effective at repelling other walkers, and I appreciated them for this reason alone. It had never, however, occurred to me that there might be, for Michonne, some form of sentiment attached to their presence. After all, they were gross and decaying, their jaws having been removed and their arms chopped off at the shoulders. They were a gory sight to be sure.

But Andrea had made a good point - Michonne _had_ become greatly agitated at Milton's questions regarding her ingenious pets. She'd reacted so viscerally that even the Governor had shut down the conversation. "It was none of his damn business," Michonne snapped.

"Guess it's none of mine, either." Andrea stopped short; Michonne paused, too, and they faced each other on the street. The whole smacked a little too sharply of high noon at the OK Corral. "Seven months together, all we've been through, I still feel like I hardly know you." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, it's the truth, I mean, come on, you know everything about me! And about Riley! And I - "

"You know enough!"

"Those walkers were with us all winter long, protecting us, and you took them out without any hesitation, that had to -"

Michonne cut her off. "It was easier than you think." And then she stalked away.

* * *

 _a long time ago_

 _I was_

 _clean and new_

 _But_

 _now I am_

 _tattered and weary_

* * *

 **If you have the time or inclination to provide some feedback, that would be so appreciated :)**


	11. The Killer Within

_**Chapter XI: The Killer Within**_

I woke with his name on my lips, my mouth just forming a request, a query, a forbidden endearment. In my dream, he had been so kind and so attentive. The squirrel had gotten away from him, but on we rode, through the soft green light of the forest. There was no snake.

What a stupid fucking dream.

I groaned, stretched away my sleep, and rolled over to see that the other bed, the one Andrea and Michonne were sharing, was empty. In one way, I wasn't surprised: after nearly a week here in Woodbury, approximately three now of those seven nights had been spent at the Governor's apartment. Michonne's absence, however, concerned me. She had been in the room when I'd fallen asleep; I remembered saying good night to her and drifting off to the gentle burble of the coffeemaker. Had I overslept?

I shrugged into the t-shirt and jeans I'd worn yesterday; I wasn't trying to impress anybody. The coffee still in the pot was essentially gelatinized, which meant I would either have to make another or head down the main street to Rita's, a pop-up café at which you could purchase a cup and a baked treat by trading labour or other supplies to either Rita or her sister, Liv.

I didn't relish the prospect of going out too often. To be honest, Woodbury and its "we're oh-so-special and safe" attitude was beginning to grate on me. Add to that the prospect of a town event, some sort of competition or demonstration to take place that night, and I was already socially depleted. So many months on our own had somewhat diminished any real social finesse I'd possessed before all of this, and Michonne even more so. Andrea, of course, was absolutely flourishing here, already having established herself as "more than a friend" to our fearless leader.

The reality was, I simply missed my group. I missed Rick's stoic strength; Carol's sweet gestures; Carl's childish sense of humour. Sometimes I caught myself staring off into space in our quiet apartment, thinking about evenings around the bonfire; that morning at the CDC; Jacqui carefully combing my hair. Memories of who I was before the fall were fading so quickly and firmly, strictly assigned to a different version of me, but those memories of the farm - though distant - were fresher, so that I often opened my eyes first thing in the morning and half-expected to see the pale blue of my tent stretched out above my head.

On my way to Rita's, with a handful of tomatoes and a few extra spoons we did not need, I thought about those days. Lost myself in them. Who I had been during them, she seemed more and more like a stranger. I passed by Woodburians, all smiles and peace, so trusting of their armed guards and the height of their walls. But didn't they know it could all fall apart in a second? One minute you're having dinner with the only people left in the world to love, and the next you're sprinting across an empty field, their blood on your hands, grief already beginning to sing in every corner of your mind.

To the people of this community, the world was now about reclaiming something lost. Coffee shops and book clubs; spaghetti Tuesdays and fight-night Saturdays. People here were dating and learning and mowing the lawn. These people, I realized suddenly, standing in front of Rita's with a dawning horror, were absolutely _delusional_.

Outside those damn walls, the dead were walking. Stalking us, hunting us - we were prey now. Maybe we always had been, but we had just developed a keen talent for fooling ourselves and each other into thinking otherwise. I whirled around, scanning the crowds, studying the faces for the slightest anxiety, but there was nothing. _Nothing_. They had the blank expressions of the truly relieved, because they had simply handed off any fear to a higher power: the Governor. He held their worries, their nightmares, and their terrors in the palm of his hand; he had manipulated them into believing they would be okay, be just fine, nothing to worry about…

But there was something to worry about. I wanted to scream that out loud. I dropped the tomatoes and utensils, and a man caught sight of me. He arranged his face into an expression of concern, reached out a gentle hand, but I drew back. "You all right, miss?" His face, his voice, his kindness - it was all too much. It wouldn't last him in the real world, the poor son of a bitch. Could he ram a knife through a walker's head? Could he load a gun and aim it at another human being? Could he threaten others to keep his loved ones safe? Could he risk life and limb to protect them?

No. He was soft. They all were. Cushioned and covered by the walls, they didn't have to get their hands dirty. They didn't even carry weapons. He reached out his hand again, and I took it in both of mine, drew it close to my chest. He would die, this poor man, with his sweet words and his care and concern. The moment those walls no longer worked, he would die.

His expression changed to a deeper, more urgent look of worry as I held his hand. "I'm sorry," I said, distractedly, my mind already back in the apartment, already packing up our shit. Should I take him with me? This poor, dead man - could I save him? "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He jerked his hand away then, looked around as though someone might've seen us, seen _me_ , acting this way. Images, disjointed and inharmonious, raced past my eyes, superimposed upon the peaceful vista of Woodbury's main street: a barn aflame; a blue tent; a lost doll; a small, tattooed X on a hand engulfing mine. I saw Beth Greene, pretty and blonde and sad, lying on a bed and staring at a misery none of us could see or ease; I saw soapy water and a creek trickling away into the woods. I saw a colony of tents, squatting around a copse of trees. I saw my home, and I cried for it.

The man was gone by the time I turned around, back towards the apartment. Likely he thought I'd gone insane, was drunk or dying or something in between. Maybe he'd tell the Governor; maybe Merle would be knocking down our door in a few minutes. But that didn't matter, not one bit, because we would be on our way by then, and they couldn't stop us. I started sprinting; took the stairs two at a time; threw open the door as though it were made of cardboard.

Michonne and Andrea were already there, arrived sometime while I was having my epiphany out on the street. They both stared at me as I began flying around the main room, shoving blankets and t-shirts and coffee mugs erratically into a plastic bag. Vaguely, distantly, as though from miles away, I heard their voices imploring me to slow down, to be calm, to talk, but we didn't have time - didn't they get that? My family was dead, or missing, or busy forgetting me, but that didn't mean I had to stay here. Those walls were closing in; I could feel it. The Governor's fist was growing tighter, his voice less sweet. Underneath the facade he'd created here, there was something slimy and sick, something rotting.

My hands shook.

"Hey, hey, hey." Michonne's voice was remarkably even, soothing. She wrested the bag from my hands and led me over to the chair she'd just left. "Relax for a minute." The action of her brushing away a lock of hair from my face, and the gentleness of her action, weakened me - sapped my panic, soaked up my fear. I exhaled and sank into the chair.

Andrea knelt beside me, her hand on my arm. "What the hell happened?"

How could I ever answer that? How to describe the creeping fear inching up the back of my neck; my growing certainty that beneath the glossy, cheery veneer of this community, it and its leader were corrupt, hiding something cruel and fatal? My sudden revulsion for the person and the place that had done nothing but provide me shelter, healing, and comfort over the past few days was nearly inexplicable. But the contrast between how safe I had felt out in the open, nothing between me and the walkers but Daryl Dixon's vigilance and the fabric of my tent - the contrast between that state of living and my current one, with tall walls and fierce men with fiercer guns, and how unguarded and vulnerable I suddenly felt within Woodbury - that was setting me at such a fundamental unease that I could barely stand it.

"I can't...be here anymore." My eyes darted around, taking in the creature comforts so generously provided for our wellbeing. Lamps, posters, books, extra cushions: all of them remnants of lives lived by people far in the past. A painting hung on the wall between our two windows - a lake landscape, a canoe nestled in the corner; stately cottages dotting the shoreline. Once upon a time, my mother would've bought such a painting, put it on our living room wall. Once upon a time, I wouldn't have given it a second glance, it being merely window dressing, an element of existence simply used to create a subtle decorative white noise, just out of the corner of my eye. Now, at the mere sight of it, I wanted to weep. I didn't have time for paintings anymore, nor for an ornamental periphery.

Over my head, Andrea and Michonne exchanged a glance that I could just _feel_. What was written there, I couldn't read; my mind was racing far too quickly for that. "What do you mean by that, Riley?" Michonne asked. "Did something happen? Did anyone...Merle…?" Her voice trailed off into unpleasant implications.

I shook my head. "No. I just can't be here anymore. We can't be here anymore." I wiped my dripping nose with the back of my hand. "These people, they're living lies. You know, they think the world can be all barbecues and baseball again, but it can't. It can't be that way. You know that." I looked between them. "You both do."

We started to pack.

It was decided we would each bring three bags. The Governor had promised us a vehicle upon our departure, but we might need to sleep in it too, so it made sense to leave as much space as possible for that purpose, and not clutter it up with unnecessary items. Three would also enable us to each grab one if we needed to abandon said vehicle in a hurry. We also took a cardboard box, reinforced it with duct tape, and used that to store the food that had been supplied for our cupboards.

"If we leave soon, we'll get a few hours on the road before dusk," Michonne observed, shoving a few t-shirts into her backpack. We were all roughly the same size: near enough at least that we could share most clothes. That made our load so much the lighter. I tossed her a pair of jeans that had been half-concealed under Andrea's bed.

"Where are we heading?" Andrea asked, zipping up the bag she'd chosen and filled with a few kitchen utensils: a cooking pot, three mugs, three bowls, and some other various flatware. We didn't need much.

"I'm thinking the coast. We have the water completely on one side, maybe we find a boat. Best thing we can do is find an island." Michonne looked over at me - not to confirm that it was a good idea; she knew that already. She wanted to gauge my reaction, weigh my commitment to survival.

It _was_ a damn good plan, I couldn't deny it. But as I rolled up our spare towels and blankets, my thoughts drifted to a small, untouched, dusty corner of my mind, where I kept half-hopes and furtive wonderings. If we were to set sail, find some sort of island wherein we could pull a Robinson Crusoe, we could live happily and safely in a controlled environment. If I kept some of the seeds from the vegetables in our box, we could set up some gardens; if we were lucky, maybe we'd encounter some chickens along the way. Then, we would just need to build some shelter, eke out some form of entertainment, and sit back and relax until we died peacefully in our beds.

But there, in that corner, I wondered - Rick and the others, they might still be out there. An insatiable instinct to survive doesn't fade away too quickly, and despite their losses at the farm, I knew all of them would want something back. To keep going, grief and all. The single, solitary idea that any of my former group members could be out there somewhere, alive, was enough to drive away any pleasant notions of island living. I wanted to keep going. Trek through the Georgia woods - hell, the whole southern USA - to find them.

How could I explain that to Michonne? For seven months, we had always been on the same page. Even our suspicions about Woodbury and the Governor were shared. How did I disrupt that harmony with my reckless desire to chase after ghosts? As it happened, Andrea helped out with her next question: "And if the coast isn't safe?"

Michonne just shrugged. "Keep moving."

I smiled.

* * *

I took a nap that afternoon, curled up and drifted off to the sound of Michonne zipping up the last of our bags, knowing that when she shut the door she was heading out to load them up into the vehicle we'd been promised. My ordeal that morning had drained me, and Mich wanted me bright and alert for the first leg of our journey. I had a keen geographic brain, she'd told me a few months ago. I could easily translate from map to reality, hold roads in my mind hours before we drove on them. Because of that, I would be invaluable in the passenger seat, as we made our way to the coast.

I dreamed of a baby, all pink and new, those soft rings carved into plump wrists and ankles. The baby nestled in my arms, nuzzled their face into my shoulder, rooting. Warm and gentle, drifting off in my embrace, quiet snuffles in my ear…

"Riley."

I woke to a dim room and dark brown eyes boring into mine. Michonne. I exhaled, smiled, shifted to a sitting position. Our bags were still stacked neatly by the door, and though her face was tense with anticipation, I could tell that Michonne was happy to be leaving. Perhaps in just a few more minutes, we would be out on the road, on our way to something better. I harboured a subtle hope that, along the way, I would be able to convince Michonne to check out a few likely places - swing by the farm and highway, for example - to search for signs of Rick and the others. Buoyed by my plan, I fairly leapt out of bed, heading straight for the coffee pot. "One more before we go?" I asked.

She smiled, but we both turned at the sound of the door to our apartment opening. Andrea entered, wearing a rueful expression, and I heard the words she was about to say before they'd even tumbled out of her mouth. "I don't think we should leave yet."

* * *

"I thought we had an agreement," Michonne snapped. I lit a cigarette, sat down, waited for it to be over. I didn't have the energy nor the inclination to let Andrea know how monumentally stupid she was being.

"We can always leave tomorrow, or the following day." Andrea stood, still near the door, as though planning a different kind of escape. Her face was calm, composed, and not a little haughty. A childish part of me wanted to hit her.

"'The following day?'" Michonne shot me an incredulous look; I just took another drag.

"We don't want to walk into trouble that we can't get out of," Andrea continued, taking a few steps closer and leaning on the back of one of the chairs. "Michonne, it's just a day or two."

"I heard you...the first time." She slammed the door behind her when she left.

I took another drag, poured a cup of coffee. Collapsing into the chair that she'd been leaning on, Andrea looked at me with expectation heavy in her gaze. She was waiting for me to validate or condemn her, either or. For the former, she'd be grateful; for the latter, she'd rake me over the goddamn coals. But I had no real feelings either way. I was leaving, tomorrow now. I'd give them tonight; my rest hadn't been all that restful anyhow, and Michonne could use the sleep, too. We'd leave at first light, with or without Andrea in the car.

I told her as much.

"Damn it, Riley, why?"

Andrea and I had never been particularly close: when we were still with the group, I had eyes and ears only for Daryl, and though I appreciated the other members, respected them, and would almost certainly take a bullet for each of them (Andrea included), nothing sisterly had ever sprung up between us. I had little patience for her bravado and her endless need to assert herself in every possible situation. I suppose I still hadn't forgiven her for shooting Daryl. She was impulsive, reckless, and selfish, and in this world, all three of those traits (particularly in combination) were death sentences. Perhaps Woodbury would be the best place for Andrea - a place where she could posture and strut, look impressive with a gun, but really need only be able to pick off walkers from a tall wall.

"You know," I said gently, tapping away the last few ashes of my cigarette. "Maybe you'd be happier here." I stood and left the smouldering butt behind in the china bowl. "No hard feelings, if that's the case. But this place...it's a -" and here I floundered, scanning my mind for the most apt term "- it's a _fantasy_ , Andrea. No one can live like this anymore. This isn't real, and it isn't sustainable, and if your Governor really cared about these people as much as he wants you to think he does, he'd be telling them the truth."

Her reaction was a mystery to me, because I just walked out, not bothering to look back at her expression or pause to hear any rejoinder. Truth was, I didn't care. I'd said my piece, laid down my opinion, and that was that. Out on the street, I avoided gazes and idle small-talk. Ostensibly, I was looking for Michonne: I wanted to tell her that we should leave at dawn, not a second later, with or without Andrea. But underneath all that, I was tasting a rising panic, a sense of foreboding - tension rippling through this peaceful fantasy. There was a storm on the horizon, and I wanted to be out before it hit.

"Hey, there, darlin'...where you off to?" Merle's voice curled around me like acrid smoke. I hadn't seen him emerge from the alleyway, had absolutely no desire to speak to him, and so I chose to simply pretend I hadn't heard him and continue on down the street. Michonne often liked to hang around the main entrance to the town, and I figured she may have wanted to finalize arrangements for our car in the morning. That was where I was headed, and I did not need Merle Dixon for company.

A hand reached around to grip my elbow, bringing me to a stumbling halt. "Let me go, asshole." My teeth fairly ground out my response, an effect which caused Merle to throw back his head and laugh deeply.

"Shit, baby girl - you're a tough one and no mistake. I can see why my little brother liked you so much."

I chose not to dignify that with a response: it had become a sore point between Merle and I over the past couple of days. He was constantly intimating that Daryl and I had been more than friends, offering snide speculations on how skilled his inexperienced sibling had been in bed. At first, I'd cussed him out and told him where he could stick his remarks, but eventually, they'd become a mere grating noise in my ear, something I could easily block out without even blushing.

His hand on my arm, though, was unacceptable. I stared hard up into his craggy face. "Let me go, _now_." I did not have time for this - the panic was still blooming in my chest, tightening and coiling and rising like a snake, poised to strike, and I didn't want to be alone on the street with Merle Dixon when it did. I needed Michonne; I needed freedom. "Whatever you say, darlin'," he growled, and then released his grip.

The force of my abrupt liberation caused me to stagger backwards, and my foot caught on the lip of the sidewalk. I tumbled onto the main road, felt my bad ankle turn in an unnatural position, and then saw nothing but stars. A heavy, glittering blanket of Georgia stars, wheeling overhead forever and ever.


	12. Say The Word

_**Chapter XII: Say The Word**_

The lemonade sucked. Far too sour.

I pinched my face in abject disgust and handed the glass back to Andrea. Why was I even here, I wanted to know? Attending a goddamn block party in the middle of an apocalypse? It was absolutely absurd, and I told her so. "Shut up," she muttered through gritted teeth. You are here because you were invited, so slap a smile on your face and look grateful."

Her response was so like something my mother would have said that it made me yearn for older days. I snapped my lips shut and looked out at the street and yards around me. People were milling about, all carrying icy drinks and hot dogs, grins on their faces wide enough to dispel any thoughts of the dead roaming beyond the tall walls. Milton Mamet, one of the Governor's top men, approached us with another drink, this time for Andrea. She handed me back my lemonade, so I smiled up at Milton from my lawn chair with all the venom I could muster.

"Thank you," Andrea cooed, accepting the glass and then lifting her long blonde hair to graze the condensation along the back of her neck. Milton swallowed, hard. "Cold drinks?" Her disbelief was feigned, coy, and utterly infuriating. _Yes, you moron, cold fucking drinks_.

"Been running the freezers all day," Milton explained, taking a sip. "Not the most practical use of the generators, to my mind."

"It's kind of amazing," Andrea simpered. And I gagged.

Milton looked pleased at her commendation. "The Governor feels it's worth it," he said pompously. I just rolled my eyes, all at once feeling as though I'd somehow regressed to my early teenage years, when my hormone-induced attitude had generated chronic disdain for basically every opinion held by anyone over the age of twenty. I'd done plenty of eye-rolling back then, much to my mother's chagrin. And exasperated, audible sighing - perhaps I ought to break that out, too. I resolved that the next stupid remark uttered by either Milton or Andrea would earn them one of these.

"Well, to a great party!" Andrea raised her glass to clink against Milton's. I sighed, and she shot me a look of disapproval hefty enough to rival that of my mother's. _Yes, mission accomplished_ , I thought with a petulant grin. "Now, if you would just drop me a hint about tonight," Andrea wheedled, batting her eyelashes like a cartoon dog.

Milton made some sort of noncommittal response, glancing down at me with poorly veiled disapproval. "Mere words cannot adequately describe the festivities ahead," he said grandly, and I snorted - equally as grandly.

As though offended, Milton left us to our own devices shortly thereafter. Andrea tried to smile away the whole incident, but her displeasure was clear: "You were never like this on the farm," she snapped down at me, but I just offered her a smirk in return.

"I never had to deal with smarmy shits like him on the farm, Andrea."

Everything was pissing me off that day. The fact that we were still in Woodbury was mighty high on my list, but the pain in my ankle and the sting of my scraped forehead were coming in pretty close behind that. After my fall, Merle had brought me to the infirmary with some bullshit explanation of me tripping and falling and him trying to catch me. Andrea, not Michonne, had been contacted - a clear sign of Merle's awareness that the latter would happily slice him in two at the slightest provocation. I'd been brought back up to our apartment with strict instructions to take it easy over the next few days - a prescription I was fully intent on disobeying. I needed a few hours of rest, and then we could be on our way.

Andrea had cajoled (read: manhandled) me into coming out to enjoy the Governor's party on this sunny Saturday afternoon. There were cool drinks, fresh food, and an overwhelming spirit of conviviality - all congealing to form a positively sickening visual assault of merriment that was starkly at odds with the world as it was. The old panic coiled taut in my chest once again, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Michonne stood across the street; we made eye contact and her face tightened. She had hoped to be on the road by now, but Andrea wouldn't hear of me leaving the walls without being able to walk or run as needed. Even as Michonne had to admit that she had a point. I was worried that she was upset with me, in my own childish way. Our time in Woodbury was beginning to foster a bit of a gulf between us, one that definitely hadn't existed when we were out in the woods. Though we were firmly on the same page when it came to leaving, the change in Andrea was worrying us both, as we gradually realized that she really didn't want to leave. But...could we actually leave her behind?

Michonne abruptly turned, and began striding up the street, away from the hustle and bustle of the town's celebrations. I didn't blame her; if I was mobile, I'd be leaving right along with her. As it was, I was longing to be back in our apartment, away from all of these ridiculous people and their deluded playacting. Add to that, I knew this whole charade was going to be extended long into the evening. The Governor had some sort of mysterious entertainment planned for everyone at sundown. So far, though, no one (including Milton) had been able to provide us with any sort of firm details. I wasn't speaking to Merle, but even he had evaded Andrea's earlier questioning.

I was hoping that we would be gone by then, but I knew better.

The lemonade was still crappy, and I was wishing for a cigarette. I'd stowed the remaining packs into our bags, and hadn't had one in nearly eight hours. Andrea didn't approve of my habit, and since I'd made it back from the infirmary a few hours ago, Michonne and I had not had a chance to talk. Andrea had been glued to my side, subjecting me to this trivial escapism.

"Hey." A deep baritone unfurled from the steps of the town hall, just to my right. The Governor stood there, hands on his hips and a grin fixed smugly on his face. An expectant hush fell over the crowd, and they all turned glowing faces onto him. _I'm sorry,_ I felt like saying, _I wasn't aware Jesus Christ had been invited_.

"The first time we gathered," the Governor continued, certain now that he had a captive audience, "there was nine of us holed up in an apartment with Spam and saltine crackers." He glanced around at the crowd, nodding at a select few. "Well, look at us now. We've built a place we can call home. May be held together with duct tape and string, but it works. It's ours. I'll take it." There was a smattering of appreciative, self-satisfied laughter from the crowd. For the hundredth time that afternoon, I rolled my eyes. "So today, we celebrate how far we've come. We remember those we've lost. We raise a glass...to us."

The crowd exploded with joy.

* * *

Andrea relented after the Governor's big speech, contracting a man named Martinez to help me up the staircase to our apartment. He didn't get handsy, even helped ease me into an armchair, so my gratitude was genuine at the end of it all. I was just happy Merle hadn't been around to ask, and told Martinez as much. "Yeah, I'm assuming he takes a while to grow on people," he laughed in response, handing me a glass of water. "He seems pretty impressed with you, though - weren't you his brother's girlfriend or something?"

I shook my head furiously. "He's a shithead."

"The brother?"

"No! Merle. Merle's a shithead." I gulped down the water in one go. "Shit for brains...Daryl and I weren't together. We were just friends. Merle just can't fathom how two people can work together without...you know."

Martinez grinned. "Yeah, I know." He glanced over at our bags sitting by the door. "You still fixed on leaving?"

I shrugged, attempting to project a lackadaisical impression of it all, since I was certain this guy would be reporting this interaction back to the Governor. Mayberry this was not. "I guess. This little hiccup -" I gestured to my wrapped ankle - "changes the timeline a little, though."

He made a small noise of sympathy. "Sucks, yeah. But seriously - why would you want to take your chances out there, when you've got safety and comfort and all that good shit here? You're not a stupid girl, I can tell. So explain it to me."

I looked at him. Really studied him. This wasn't conversation; it wasn't concern, it wasn't empathy. This was intelligence gathering, reconnaissance. Martinez wanted to know what was really going on in my head, so that the Governor could come at me from another angle. He wanted us here, and had already worked his magic on Andrea. She wasn't going, I realized. It hit me like a tidal wave, washed over me, drowned me in its simple veracity. Andrea would not be leaving with me and Michonne, and we would have to fight tooth and nail to leave ourselves. It wouldn't be as quick and tidy as putting our bags in the car and waving goodbye. No. It wouldn't be like that at all.

The panic was back, bright and vicious in my chest.

I smiled, prayed my lips wouldn't tremble. "I guess it's just...we were out there for a, uh, long time, and we want something of our own. It's nothing personal, you know. This is a nice place." The lie tasted too sweet on my tongue.

Martinez leaned back in his chair, appraising me. "You do know Merle's looking for his brother, right? He's gonna check out the farm y'all were staying at, look at a few other places. If your man is still out there, Merle's gonna find him." I snapped my eyes up to meet his, all business. "I would think you'd like to be here when he brings him in."

He'd said 'when,' not 'if.' Was Merle reasonably confident he could find Daryl? It made sense for them to look for a place nearby - they wouldn't set out on some epic road-trip, not with Lori being pregnant and losses still heavy on their hearts. They would look for somewhere secure in the local area, the terrain they knew fairly well. And seven month, with that many people...it was very possible they were still alive and around. I turned my face away, focusing on the bags near the door. Staying put would mean staying connected; Merle was a good tracker, I was sure of it. He'd taught Daryl everything. If anyone had a chance of tracking them all down, it was Merle Dixon. And if I stayed, I would be with them all again.

Damn.

* * *

It took me a good ninety minutes of thinking to come up with a couple of reasonable excuses to keep us in Woodbury for a couple of days. The panic in my chest was still there - I could feel it lurking underneath the stupid grin I wore on my face. But I ignored it, so heartened was I by Martinez's news. The prospect of being reunited with my old group was the ultimate distraction, yet in some quiet corner of my mind, I was aware that I was probably being manipulated.

Logic told me that Michonne and I could just easily work together to locate my people. I needn't rely on Merle Dixon. And more to the point, Daryl and the rest would probably not be entirely comfortable here in Woodbury. These walls were not the problem, I had realized - the man in charge was. Any leader that tried to keep their people blind was a walking, talking hazard sign.

And yet, and yet...seeing them again, being with them again, that thought was almost intoxicating. Lori would likely have given birth by now, or was maybe very close to her due date. Dr. Stevens could help her, take some of the load off of Hershel. We could improve this place, I felt. Rick better epitomized the definition of an effective leader; perhaps he could be of an inspiration to the Governor, fix things up around here. Daryl could bring Merle to heel; Carol could fit in and make friends, find hope and companionship again; Carl would have other kids to play with.

It was perfect.

I didn't unpack the bags, but I did manage to limp over to the kitchenette and assemble a basic salad for our dinner, using a few of the supplies from our box of food. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes were diced and chopped and tossed together in an inviting, colourful arrangement. I even found a bottle of wine secreted in the back of one of the lower cupboards; I poured it into extra coffee mugs and then sat back down in the armchair to view my handiwork. Perfect. Inviting. Homey. Utterly persuasive.

My arguments were arranged neatly in my mind. I would begin with the most obvious: my ankle would prevent me from being able to safely evade any sort of trouble on the road. Running out of gas, breaking down - these would all quickly escalate into disastrous events with me unable to escape or assist in any real fashion. Dr. Stevens had said that with rest and elevation, my ankle (which wasn't even officially sprained, just wrenched and still bitter from my ravine escapades months ago) would be fine within a couple of days. My concussion, though, was a little more worrisome. She wanted me kept close by, under observation. There were my first two reasons. If Michonne still required more convincing after this point, I would bring up Martinez's revelation, emphasizing the fact that I only needed to stay if Merle seemed reasonably confident that his brother could be found. I sat back, pleased with my plan, suddenly thrilled at the thought that, within a few days, I might be with my old group once more.

And so it was rather jarring when Michonne and Andrea entered the room in the midst of a heated argument. "Michonne, you can't do things like this," Andrea said earnestly, shutting the door behind her and not even giving me a cursory glance. "You're freaking people out. You're freaking _me_ out."

Michonne ignored her for a minute, coming to kneel beside the arm of my chair and look up with concern at the butterfly bandage pasted to my forehead. Her eyes were looking for some sort of confirmation, so I took one of her hands in mine and squeezed. "I'm good, Mich. No worries." Her face relaxed, and she stood swiftly, turning back to Andrea. It was then that I noticed she had gotten her katana back; it was slung neatly across her shoulders.

"The northeast wall is guarded by some girl. We can escape there after dark," she muttered, striding over to the pile of bags. "We'll just take the ones with the clothes and the meds. We can find kitchen stuff and food somewhere else, and Riley won't be able to carry anything. I don't want any extra weight on her foot."

"We are _not_ prisoners here." Andrea sounded wholly exasperated, and even though ordinarily I would be on Mich's side, I didn't see that there was much call for us to sneak out in the middle of the night. The Governor had offered us a vehicle, supplies, and ammo. Despite his unctuous overconfidence, I didn't really think that he would hold us back. I knew he was trying his damnedest to get us to stay, but there was a huge sea of difference between that and holding us hostage.

"No one who comes here leaves," Michonne countered, adjusting her katana.

"It's safe! There's food, there's shelter...there's people, for God's sake." Andrea tossed her hands in the air and sat down hard on the edge of my bed. She looked tired, so tired, as though she'd been having the same fight for far too long. Who knows how long they had been going at it before arriving at our door.

Michonne's retort was sharp: "That's what they show you. But you can't leave unless they make you."

"You are not making any sense." Andrea caught my eye, offering up an invitation to add anything helpful. But the truth was, Michonne's words were beginning to temper my brimming excitement. She was right, I realized - every exit attempt we'd made so far had been somehow gently thwarted - quietly, subtly, kindly, except for my interaction with Merle out on the street. The old panic rose again. "Mich, maybe you need to sit for a minute."

"You need to trust me." I had never seen Michonne like this before. Generally, yes, she was an intense person: all ragged edges and raw emotion, contained and managed beneath a tight veneer of necessitated calm. But this was a different dimension - she was cut to the quick now, fear evident and potent in her every movement, the way her voice snapped and bit at us.

"And you need to give me more to go on," Andrea countered. "We've got a good thing going here."

"I thought this was temporary."

"And I think we need this. All three of us. I want to give this place a real shot."

Michonne gritted her teeth. "I tried -"

"Breaking into houses?" Andrea interjected. "That is not trying. That is sabotaging."

"This place is not what they say it is."

"Um, hey?" I waved a hand, and both women turned to look at me. "Anybody care to tell me what the actual fuck is going on here? What are you talking about, 'breaking into houses?'"

* * *

In the end, we all agreed to go. Like a blubbering baby, I started to cry when I told them about Merle's plan, begged Michonne to stay for a few more days, long enough to give me a chance to head out with Merle. But after about an hour of some verbal volleyball, we decided we'd strike out on our own. Michonne agreed to check back at the farm, do a bit of tracking from that point. "If they're out there, we'll try and find them," she relented.

Her story came out over the quick lunch I'd made, back when I'd thought I was just days away from being reunited with my family. She told me how she'd broken through a gate into some sort of compound out back, at the furthest point of Woodbury's outer (still fenced) limits, to find a collection of walkers - chained, with their teeth removed, milling about aimlessly - which she'd then promptly dispatched. The Governor and most of his men had become alerted to her actions, and then she'd been offered a job as part of the research team. Rather than reassuring her, however, the encounter just simply solidified her intention to leave. She felt that the horde of walkers being kept in this manner signalled some sinister purpose, and she wanted no part of it. Her intense resolve, coupled with the abject fear in his eyes, swayed me to withdraw my vote for staying. We would find Daryl and the others, I knew that - but we didn't need Merle or the Governor.

Andrea, too, eventually came around. Once Michonne had me back onside, we constituted a force to be reckoned with. Her past life as a lawyer meant that Andrea had some skill in arguing, but even she didn't have the energy to go to task with someone as vociferous as Michonne, not under these circumstances. She did, however, insist that we not attempt to sneak away in the night. "The Governor promised us safe passage and supplies," she said, polishing off the salad. "There's no reason for us to suspect he won't keep his word."

Within an hour, then, we were ready to go. We found a spare vehicle - an SUV that seemed in fairly good condition - in one of the lots near our building, and loaded our stuff inside. Michonne helped me to settle in the passenger seat, where I contented myself with my first cigarette in quite a few days and a county map. I had circled the approximate highway exit where we had found Hershel's farm, and figured that should be our first destination. We would, however, have to approach from the neighbouring town; the highway was presumably still clogged with abandoned vehicles. From that point, we could pursue likely escape routes, maybe even getting lucky and encountering them along the way. I smiled around the filter of my smoke.

Andrea stretched out in the backseat as Michonne took the wheel. The blonde's reluctance was composed neatly on her face, in stark contrast to the relief and hope written on Michonne's and mine. It was just the three of us once again, back to where we worked best.

Michonne eased the SUV up to the front gate. Martinez was on duty; he flashed me a rueful smile through the windshield, but I just shrugged in response, looking back down at my map. The vehicle ground to a halt as we waited for the gate to be opened. I hoped there would be no lengthy, drawn-out goodbyes - I just wanted to hit the road. Michonne rolled down the driver's side window to talk to Merle, who'd hopped down from the guard's platform along the main wall.

"Hey, hey, hey, girls," he drawled, leaning into the window. "Where y'all off to in such a hurry?" He winked directly at me. "Huh?" Michonne didn't answer, but continued to stare straight ahead at the unopened gates. "Y'all are breaking my heart running away like that."

"We're leaving." Michonne's voice was a taut bowstring, and the panic began roiling in my stomach at the obvious increase in her tension. My Ladysmith was in the glove box; why had I put it there? I should have it on my lap, easier to access. But did I really want to shoot Daryl's brother in the face? What a story that would make, when I saw him again.

"It's almost curfew," Merle observed, smacking his lips. "I'd have to arrange an escort. I mean, the party's still going on." He gestured down the street.

"We don't need a fucking escort, Merle," I snapped.

Merle grinned, clapped his hands a single time. "Oh, ho! There she is. There's my baby brother's baby girl. I love it, darlin'. Love that fire. Hot as hell, you are, sweetheart." He laughed as he leaned back in towards us, getting serious once more. "Shit, alright, wait here a second, ladies."

As he turned and gestured toward Martinez (who then knelt down on the platform to talk to him), Andrea stepped out of the car and walked towards them. Michonne followed briskly. For my part, I shimmied my Ladysmith out from the glove box, hoping I wouldn't have to use it; knowing it would be useless if a fight were to break out, but relishing the cool confidence of her shape in my hands all the same. "The Governor told us we were free to come and go whenever we liked," Andrea said, loud enough for me to hear through Michonne's open window.

"Sweetheart," Merle replied, in what I'm sure he meant as a kindly voice, "nothing personal here, but you're gonna have to step back."

"See?" Michonne said, flashing a begrudgingly triumphant glance back at me. "There's always a reason why we can't leave yet."

Early on in this world, I'd decided that I would chase choices. To me, that was the only true freedom afforded anymore: go here, stay there; eat this, share that; love him, leave them. And so sitting here, realizing that Michonne was right, that the voice to leave, presented so sunnily by the Governor, wasn't actually on the table at all - it was jarring, foreboding...infuriating. The seatbelt was too tight; the sun too hot; the map trembled in my hands. _Let me go_ , I pleaded silently. _Let me go, let me go, let me go_.

Michonne was poised for a fight, taut and tensed and ready. I watched the nascent rage ripple through her body, and thought back to the first time I'd seen her fight. She was vicious in a battle, but in a highly efficient way. Her sword came slicing through every possible direction, whistling through the air as though it were made of smoothest silk. She was, to be brief, deadly.

Would it come to a fight now? I let the map fall to the floor, wrapped my hand around my Ladysmith. And I waited.

Merle walked back towards the girls with a smile. Wide as the horizon, cutting across his smug, stupid face with all the aplomb of a gash in a pie. I hated him. "Clear."

What the hell?

Michonne's eyes flickered to meet mine; I tried to project some sort of a warning with my gaze. _Don't turn this into something_ , I wanted to say. _Just accept the win; let's go._ If things at Woodbury really were as sinister as we both suspected (despite my floundering earlier in the day, I was back on track with Operation Get The Hell Out Of This Place), we just needed to drive, and keep driving. Maybe stay overnight at the farm; maybe we'd encounter my people before that. Once we were with them again, we'd have the numbers to be safe. And it was a spectacular bonus that Andrea was in the car with us: I'd had myself thoroughly convinced she would remain.

"Now," Merle drawled, leaning against Michonne's window once more, after both she and Andrea had gotten back into the SUV and shut their doors. "If I was y'all, I'd find some shelter before nightfall." Behind him, the gates yawned open with an almighty creak; the road beyond looked desperately inviting. He leaned back, released his grip on the window frame.

I exhaled. A deep, grateful sigh. We were as good as gone.

Michonne began to fumble with the ignition, adjusting herself in the seat. "They knew we were coming. This was all for show," she muttered darkly, flexing her hands on the wheel.

"Do you hear yourself?" Andrea sounded exasperated. "How can you know that? And why would they bother?"

"Ladies…" Merle was grinning.

Andrea leaned forward, her face suddenly, damnably appearing between our two seats. "Close the gates."

"No," Michonne interjected sharply. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, but didn't press down on the gas. What was stopping her, I wondered? The gates were wide open, our path clear - hell, even the guards had consented to us leaving. But Andrea's interruption had done more than just make Merle Dixon smile. Michonne's expression had fallen, settling back into the old anger, simmering beneath the surface; something in her eyes faltered and flared intermittently, a determination neither to boil over nor to cry.

"I practically begged the Governor to let you stay." As usual, Andrea was oblivious to the subtle changes in Michonne. So often over the winter, I'd observed Mich's expressions and actions alter even slightly in response to careless, offhand remarks made by Andrea and, in the early days, me. She held secrets and a long story behind her, as we all did, but it was important to me to study her bearing and reactions, in order to respect her boundaries and her emotions. I suppose, though, it was easy to assume that a woman who wielded a katana as though it were a paintbrush would be in scarce need of emotional support.

Now, Michonne's eyes flickered down, looking anywhere but at either of her companions. Her fingers were gripping the wheel so tightly that I half-expected to see it crack and splinter within her grasp. "I didn't ask for that."

"You didn't have to," Andrea replied, in a curious tone both grand and generous. She laid a hand on Michonne's shoulder; smiled over at me. "That's what friends do for each other."

"Oh, please. Don't shit us," I scoffed. "You're doing this for a warm bed and a good-looking man."

"Damn, girl!" crowed Merle, who had been listening raptly to our entire conversation thus far. "Tell her how you really feel." I shot him a look of pure venom, hoping against all logic that it would burn his other goddamn hand clean off his arm. I was about damn sick of Merle fucking Dixon. Over the past couple of days, from his grandiose welcome wagon to his snide remarks about his brother's alleged penchant for "ugly girls good in bed," I was regretting that Rick hadn't done those handcuffs up a little tighter on that roof back in the city. He was nothing like Daryl.

Daryl for sure was not flawless. Our friendship in the early days was volatile, frequently interrupted by arguments and name-calling. But on those lonely winter nights, I kept going back to that ride to the CDC, just the two of us smoking in the truck, falling asleep as he drove. We didn't really talk too much, didn't delve too deeply, and we'd sniped at each other a few times - but it was then that I'd realized that just two or three days with this cantankerous, sometimes-uncouth man had completely toppled any expectations I'd had about attraction. On paper, I should have hated Daryl. Sometimes, I thought I did. But then he would say something funny, with that sparse type of humour that catches people off-guard - bringing out a laugh or a smile before you even realize what's happening. Or he would help someone - he had spent days looking for Sophia. And those nights after we'd started sharing a tent, bemoaning our injuries and growing closer. The day that Sophia had emerged from the barn, and he'd held Carol so closely and tenderly.

Daryl Dixon was a veritable symphony of redemption, oscillating between cresting waves of unpleasantness and irreplaceability. In contrast, his brother was crude and gleeful, taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. I had cause to wonder whether these surface qualities masked something deeper and darker; he'd hinted at it in the way he fairly pushed me to the ground that day. Daryl had made me feel safe and cared for; with Merle, it was all risk.

In the heat of the still vehicle, I shook my head slightly. The road ahead, just beyond the gaping fence, was beginning to blur and fade, to grow distant. Sitting there musing about the brothers Dixon was unlikely to change the situation, and I gradually became aware that while I had been so lost in my thoughts, Andrea and Michonne had continued their disagreement.

"Eight months, eight months on the road moving place to place, scavenging, living in a meat locker," Andrea shrilled. "That was no life. I'm tired, I'm tired. I don't have another eight months in me, not like that. And you, Mich, I…"

"What about me?" Michonne's voice was low, rumbling like a distant storm.

"I'm afraid you're going to disappear." Andrea leaned even closer to the front seat. She placed her hand on my shoulder now, as though to remind me that I was a part of this. But all I wanted to do was go, to leave behind the neat streets of this frightening place, to be far away from Merle and the Governor; to be closer to finding my family. I just wanted to go; why was she complicating that? "We always talked about this place, didn't we? A refuge. That idea is what kept us going."

Michonne didn't turn her face; she barely moved, but she didn't have to: her next remark was clear, ringing in its precision. "Are you coming or not?"

Immediately, I shifted into action, and my movements were like quicksilver. One second, I was looking down at my battered boots on the rubber floormat - the next, I was digging through the trunk of the SUV, shimmying my Ladysmith into the back of my jeans, tying my hair up into an efficient ponytail. Michonne was right there with me; Andrea too, but not of the same spirit, not by any means.

"Don't do this." Andrea's hands gripped mine. "You're injured, Riley, you can't be out there on foot, on your own -" She stopped as my eyes whipped up to meet hers. My hands were already on the straps of the backpack I'd decided to take with me; my tired feet and burning ankle already miles in the past. I needn't say anything aloud; she could read everything I wanted her to know in my gaze. _Fuck you, but I get it_.

I couldn't fault her for her choice. I could fear for her, certainly, but I couldn't blame her. Those winter months had been hard on all of us, but Andrea in particular. Truth was, despite her big talk and her strutting around, Andrea wasn't cut out for the world as it was. It demanded blood and humility, and she wasn't willing to embrace either. Andrea was a leader for the old world: the type of person who knew how to sway others with just a few words; the kind who could present a half-cocked idea, sell it as gold, and win over thousands.

She'd fit into Woodbury well, then. This place subsisted off of ideas: the Governor says everything's fine, we've got cold drinks and high walls, we'll be grand. She would adapt and live and probably flourish for as long as those ideas held true. Michonne and I, though, we were different. We lived in the world as it was, accepted it walkers and all. And looking something directly in the eye sure helps you to fight back. Maybe because then you realize you've got nothing to lose.

So I hugged Andrea. And I hopped it wasn't goodbye, but I needed her to know that there were no real hard feelings. I wanted my life in this new world to be about choices and agency, and she had a right to hers. "Don't do this," she said again, whispering it into my shoulder. "Don't do this, Riley. They wouldn't want this for you. Chloe wouldn't…"

I pulled back, pushed her away. She had gone too far and she knew it; regret was written all over her face. There were two topics off-limits between the two of us, and we had established that pretty firmly over the past year together: you did not talk about Amy, and you sure as hell did not talk about Chloe.

Andrea switched tactics, turning to Michonne, who was preoccupied with sweeping the katana over her shoulder. "Michonne, don't do this. Don't give me an ultimatum, not after everything."

"Are you coming or not?"

All of Woodbury, it seemed, paused for a moment. Andrea's lip trembled at Mich's question, her heart visibly breaking as she shook her head. I bit the inside of my cheek, staunchly determined to leave without shedding a tear. Head held high, gun at your waist, regrets smouldering in your wake - that's the way to leave. Even after so many months together - long, dark nights when we thought we wouldn't live until the morning...meals shared from one can...falling asleep to the sounds of other breaths, to the rasp of Michonne's walkers, closing our eyes against memory and heartache and any brand of hope.

"You'd just slow me down anyway." Michonne slammed her fist into the side of the car and beckoned to me, the girl she didn't have to ask. She knew I'd be right there alongside her, no matter where she led. We started walking, heading for the open gate, for the endless Georgia highway.

I shouldn't have gone back, that's clear as day now. Just a few steps away from freedom, I mumbled something about checking the trunk, turned away from Michonne, and slipped into Andrea's arms one last time. Before, I think I'd been saying goodbye to the Andrea I'd known all winter long; this second time, I was thinking about the quarry, and the road, and the farm. Goodbye to all the people I had been with her in all those different places, to the women we both had become in those early days of the world's ending. She pressed me close against her, and we both said a silent goodbye. I thought those would our last moments together, but I was wrong.

The gate slammed shut; I heard Michonne cry out from the other side, but my mind had not yet caught up with this newest development, and so I just gawped, just listened. Andrea let me go, started talking angrily to Merle, to Martinez, to anyone who would listen. But no one was. A buzzing started to rise around my ears; a red flush blurred my sight. What was happening? Where was Michonne? Had she left me? Had I left her? Should I yell, too?

And then the world fell away.

* * *

I woke with the taste of tears still thick in my mouth, cloying as spoiled jam. There were ghosts in the room, but I couldn't deal with them now.

"Welcome back, sweetheart." The endearment was familiar, but since I didn't feel a surge of bloodlust, I assumed it was not Merle speaking. My eyes fluttered open to see the kind, round face of Dr. Stevens, her eyes trained on the still-trickling cut slicing across my forehead, which I presumed had been reopened by my most recent fall. I pressed a finger to it; it came away bright red. "Easy does it."

"Michonne?" I croaked, because I was sure she was waiting outside the infirmary for me, she would never leave me, not ever. Dr. Stevens fiddled with some implements on a low table to her right, studiously endeavouring to avoid my gaze. "Doctor, where's Michonne?" My voice was a child's, lost and alone.

"Your warrior princess is gone, darlin', I'm sorry to say."

Goddamn it.

I'd hoped to never that voice again. Tired, itchy eyes rolled to the far side of the infirmary, to the open doorway Merle Dixon was leaning against, a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face. "Now, don't be getting yourself worked up. You took quite a tumble out there on the street; had the whole town worried about yourself." A stool rattled as he dragged it closer to my bedside; the doctor didn't leave, but she did fairly press herself against her supply cabinet, as though something foul and putrid had just slithered into the room.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn't stop the tears. A child again, great hiccuping sobs soon followed. To my eternal shock and surprise, Merle reached out a gentle hand to pat my shoulder. "It's all right, kid. There's one thing I've learned, it's that the people who walk away shouldn'ta been there in the first place."

"You're full of shit," I spat, wiping the tears from my face. "Michonne didn't walk away; I passed out and then you asses shut the gates on her." My boldness grew, and I shifted up to a sitting position. "You think I'm too stupid to suss what's going on here? The Governor's got a big old smoke and mirrors game going, and Michonne was ready to dispel some illusions." Merle just grinned. God, did he ever get sick of doing that? "Your people are going to die, Merle, because they aren't allowed to live in the real world."

Dr. Stevens made a small noise of alarm as I pushed myself off the bed, but Merle just stood to face me. My eyes barely reached his chin, but I'm of the mind that intimidation is 90% tone and bearing anyways, so I just concentrated on glaring the holy living hell out of him. "Done, sweetheart?" he murmured.

Nothing. Like. Daryl.

"Yeah, you can go fuck yourself," I replied icily. "There — now I'm done."

If life was a movie, I would have turned smartly on my heel, strode for the door, and left with my head held high and awe in my wake. But life was not a movie, friends, not at all, and I had a sore ankle and a lingering head injury so instead of turning smartly on my heel, I put too much weight on my bad foot and promptly careened into Merle's grasp, swore, slid down the length of legs to puddle on the floor, and then continued to cry.

Stevens was at my side in a moment, her hands gently snaking underneath my armpits to help me up. "Mr Dixon —"

"Leave her, doc." And she let me go, leaving me blubbering on the floor at his feet. All the work I'd put into adapting to this world, all the people I'd already lost, and this was where I ended up. Sobbing on the floor, huddled in a heap, without a single, solitary, goddamn clue of what came next. "Listen to me, girl, you listen real good, now," Merle said, looking down at me with a not-ungentle hand resting on the crown of my head. "She's gone. Long gone. Yeah, we shut the gate on her, but she didn't look back, just kept walking. She left you, baby." His hand moved idly in a disarmingly comforting motion. Had he done this to soothe Daryl as a boy? "But you're still here, and you can make the most of it. I'm going to find my little brother, and you're gonna help me."


	13. Chupacabra

_**Chapter XIII: Chupacabra**_

It was the type of morning that made you believe the lie that summers in Georgia never end: a robustly blue sky; light, slightly scented breeze; and a sunny warmth to the air that still necessitated short sleeves and wide-brimmed hats. Though it was nearly November, it felt like July, especially to this northern girl, and I was relishing it. Despite the horrors we'd endured over the past few weeks, this brief reprieve from the trials winter was sure to offer was a welcome vacation, a helpful distraction for a few moments each morning, before we got down to work.

The searching party was gathered around the hood of Carol's Cherokee, though the mother in question was nowhere to be found. Likely still asleep, forcing herself to swim through dreams of a daughter safe and alive, perhaps trying to delay that inevitable moment of waking, for the fifth time in a row facing the fact that Sophia was not beside her. I hoped today would be the last day for that — hoped that the next day would see the little girl joining us for our breakfast beans.

"Morning, guys," Rick said, nodding at Jimmy and me, the latecomers. I offered the kid a small smile of gratitude — Hershel Greene, the farmer upon whose hospitality we trespassed, hadn't by any means deterred our daily efforts to find Sophia, but he also hadn't extended the hand of welcome any further than was essentially necessary. That his youngest daughter's boyfriend appeared to be joining us today was a promising development. "Let's get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

Rick stretched out a county survey map of the local area across the hood of the Jeep, smoothing out the long-folded creases here and there. "All right, everyone's getting new search grids today." He took a pen from his pocket and began to draw a small circle just to the northeast of the farm's location — a site he'd pointed out to us a few days ago, when we'd first initiated an organized attempt at search and rescue. "If she made it as far as the farmhouse Daryl found, she might have gone further east than we've been so far." He traced a line to the approximate location Daryl had indicated the day before.

Jimmy, the kid, cleared his throat, perhaps thinking it was as good a time as any to make a formal announcement of his intentions. "I'd like to help," he said. "I know the area pretty well and stuff."

Rick looked at Shane, who just shrugged his shoulders. The kid _was_ in his late 'teens, and he had a good point — we could study the map all we wanted, but it wouldn't compare to actual firsthand knowledge of the literal lay of the land. "Hershel's okay with this?" Rick asked, tilting his head in a manner that, by now, we all associated with either genuine curiosity or murderous intent.

Jimmy nodded. "Yeah, yeah. He said I should ask you," he said smoothly.

"All right, then." Rick smiled at him warmly. "Thanks."

The map showed us several options for laying out a search grid for Sophia. Ever since the day nearly a week ago when the herd had come through the highway, we'd been operating on equal parts hope and Daryl's tracking skills. Rick knew how to organize a search; his experience as a police officer had prepared him for that, but the backwoods of Georgia were a foreboding labyrinth that only Daryl seemed to understand. He could look out at the thick congestion of trees and brush and somehow see a potential path through it all; he could study an impression left in the mud and know instantaneously whether it belonged to human, walker, or animal, and how recently they had come through.

I had yet to actually track only with him, but there was a strange feeling brewing somewhere deep in my gut, some species of nervous butterfly that was growing in agitation at the prospect that today might be the day that Rick or Shane offhandedly assigned Daryl and I to search together. I know they didn't like him going off alone — it wasn't safe for anyone to be on their own these days. Normally, I tagged along with T-Dog or Rick and whoever they were partnered with, but today….today might be the day.

We hadn't had much of a chance to be alone together since the highway. After our escape from the CDC, when the whole world had exploded in front of our eyes, I'd stuck to Daryl like glue. A "coping mechanism," I heard Lori whisper to Rick one night. When we'd run from the building, the place we thought would be our new home, our sanctuary, I had leaped into Daryl's truck, and he had come in after me, diving inside to push me to the floor, covering me with his entire body, even muttering a few uncharacteristic words of comfort in my ear as I shook uncontrollably. Jacqui's death kept playing over and over in my mind — the sight of her peaceful, contented face smiling at me as I ran for my life, that was burned irrepressibly to my memory. He couldn't erase that, not even with his gentle hands and kind words, but that sudden change in his treatment of me — no snark, no abruptness, no awkwardness — just an acknowledgement of my need to be comforted, to be reassured…it changed something for me. Our conversation in the kitchen that morning seemed to be worlds away, but as we had driven away from the smouldering wreck of our one great hope, Daryl's hand had stayed reassuringly on my knee for a good ten minutes. He was uncomfortable with touching, I knew that, but maybe he needed the contact just as much as I did. I started to wonder if perhaps my anxiety that I was falling in love with someone who would never, ever feel anything for me in return — perhaps that anxiety was futile.

To confirm that, though, I felt I needed some time alone with him. I wanted to gauge his comfort level, to see if things had changed at all. Searching for Sophia together would provide the necessary isolation to accomplish this task.

I began to blush at my own thoughts, but not out of coquettish embarrassment. Abruptly, and violently, I became ashamed at my own intentions. A little girl was missing in walker-infested woods, and here I was plotting to get a man alone to see if he had a crush on me, too. I was a terrible, terrible person, and everyone probably knew it.

Flushed, I tried to refocus on the conversation at hand. That's what a good person would do, after all. "Nothing about what Daryl found screams 'Sophia' to me," Shane said, shoving his baseball cap down more firmly on his head. He had changed too, over the past couple of days. The stress of losing the girl and almost losing Carl was likely to blame. Our arrival at the Greene farm had been necessitated by a hunting accident, of all things, when Carl had taken a through-and-through from a doe in the woods, smack-dab in the middle of our initial searching efforts. Since then, our world had gotten much bigger, and much more uncomfortable as we struggled to make ourselves welcome in this new safe haven; as Carl quietly fought for his life in the farmhouse; as we all pushed away horrific _what-ifs_ about Carol's daughter. This stress, however, did not give Shane the right to shatter what fragile hopes Daryl had engendered with his discovery the previous day. "Anyone could've been holed up in that farmhouse."

My eyes flickered over to Daryl, who had visibly tensed at Shane's words but not said anything in response. I was hoping this day wouldn't start with a fight, but I was more than ready to engage if necessary. "Anybody includes her, right?" Rick busied himself with drawing off of a few more segments for the new grids, and his question caused Shane to tighten his lips in displeasure. Yes, an abandoned farmhouse, pillows in the pantry, and a freshly-scraped can of tuna fish could point to just about anyone, with the world the way it was. But if it were Sophia who had taken shelter there, that meant she had survived at least a few days and nights, and that she was nearby.

Daryl was pulling his brother's vest over his shoulders as he replied. "Whoever slept in that cupboard was no bigger than yea-high." He indicated a height about five or so inches above his own waist. Just about Sophia's size.

"It's a good lead." Rick levelled a steely glance at Shane, who just looked away, i shame or frustration, I couldn't tell. "Maybe we'll pick up her trail again."

"No maybe about it," Daryl said firmly. "I'm gonna borrow a horse, head up to this ridge right here, take a bird's eye view of the whole grid." He pointed to a strip of brown not too far from the farm. "If she's up there, I'll spot her."

Everyone nodded in agreement, made various noises of assent. It made perfect sense, as we had a large area of fairly good potential to search. Sophia was no more familiar with this place than we were, and though Rick had offered her some brief, solid directional advice when they were first separated in the woods, odds were that panic and hunger were going to have a significant impact, sooner or later, on her judgement and patterns of movement. She was just twelve years old, after all — logic told me to return to the highway where my friends and family might be waiting, but I wasn't a scared little girl, just wanting my mom.

Or was I?

"Maybe you'll see your chupacabra up there, too." T-Dog was trying, and failing, to conceal a smile. Laughter rippled through the group at his comment, but none of it came from Rick nor I, who merely exchanged a look of utmost confusion. An inside joke, perhaps?

"Chupacabra…?" Rick asked.

"You never heard this?" Dale asked, as he started handing out various firearms, starting with a shotgun passed across the roof of the Jeep to Rick. "Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of a time when he went squirrel hunting and he saw a chupacabra." Jimmy scoffed.

"What are you braying at, jackass?" Daryl narrowed his eyes at Jimmy, who then did a wonderful impression of a man facing his own demise. It was really quite something — his face seemed to be immediately drained of all colour; his mouth began gulping around words he couldn't quite muster up. I put a comforting hand on the kid's shoulder.

Rick bit back a grin. "You believe in a blood-sucking dog?"

"Do you believe dead people walking around?" I had to admit; Daryl had an excellent point. Something once believed far out of the realm of possibility had come true, we were facing it every single day. And while I for one didn't believe there was a chupacabra to be found in Georgia, it probably wasn't up to me to shoot down this particular theory. All I could hope was that I didn't encounter it, or any walkers, today.

While Rick and Daryl engaged in a visual standoff, Jimmy took the opportunity to reach across the hood towards the small pile of weapons Dale had slowly been putting on offer. His hand had brushed the handle of a small .45 before Shane wrenched him back by the shoulder. "Hey, hey — you ever fire one before?"

I'll give credit where it's due, Jimmy tried his hardest to not look like a scrawny seventeen year old farm boy when he faced up to Shane. He failed, of course, but he tried. "Well," he said, his voice faltering slightly at Shane's slight but basically perpetual glare, "if I'm going out, I want one."

"Yeah," Daryl sneered, shifting the crossbow over his shoulder, "and people in hell want slurpees."

Shane's expression softened as he emerged from the inside of the Cherokee, where he'd been leaning; perhaps he was impressed by the kid's bravado. "Why don't you come train tomorrow? If you're serious, I'm a certified instructor." Jimmy looked interested; he caught Andrea's eye, who nodded at the offer and then suggested that the kid join her and T-Dog for the day. "He's yours to babysit, then," came Shane's response.

As the rest of them selected their weapons for the day, I stepped closer to the map, trying to see where my initials or name had been jotted down for the day. I scanned the grid; couldn't see it. "Rick," I ventured, "where am I today?"

He hesitated, glanced over to meet T-Dog's eye. "Well," he began, taking a step closer, "we — _I_ was wondering if you'd be willing to go with Daryl today. We, uh, we're worried about him going out on his own too much."

 _Pull yourself together, Riley_ , I thought as my heart fairly sprang to my throat. Hadn't this been what I'd hoped for? That I would get the chance to trek through the woods with Daryl Dixon, to talk with him about the changes that had occurred over the past several days. Really, I just wanted some time with him, the opportunity to gauge any alterations in our relationship, how we could move forward in this new context.

It was apparent that Rick had thought long and hard about pairing me up with Daryl (who, by the way, had already begun to stride towards the stable, simply assuming that, once more, he was heading out solo), and that he wasn't entirely confident about the decision. I knew that there were members of the group who were concerned, sometimes vocally so, about the unconventional friendship that had sprung up between the two of us since we'd left the quarry. Shane was particularly opposed to it, often making snide insinuations about the real nature of our bond. Thankfully, Daryl had yet to be in earshot for any of these, as I suspected his reaction would be swift and violent — not in defence of my honour, by any means, but for the preservation of his own independent image.

I chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and acquiesced before Rick could change his mind (or anyone else could speak). I picked up my .45 and wished them all good luck before setting out for the stable. Daryl's potential reaction to this development was the real determining factor here: if he didn't want me to come along, there probably wasn't going to be anything any of us could do to sway him, and to be honest — I thought to myself as I trudged uphill towards the structure in the distance, watching him enter through a side door — none of them were likely to expend too much energy on convincing him, in any case. If Daryl didn't want me tagging alongside, I would be with Rick and Shane for the rest of the day.

I hoped he would agree.

The stable, when I finally entered, already sticky with sweat from the unseasonably warm day, was cool and dark, softly musical with the nickering of at least a dozen horses. The smell wasn't ideal, but it was so pleasant to be in such an _alive_ space that I simply chose to disregard it.

Daryl emerged from a stall at the far end, leading a good-sized chestnut horse along behind him. He didn't seem to notice me at first; he was too focused on the animal, on speaking gently to it, on stroking the brilliant flash of white streaking down its face. His hands smoothed reassuringly along the flanks as he eased a saddle over the back, deftly attaching and strapping where necessary. I waited until I'd heard the clink of a bridle before announcing my presence, thinking that the closer he was to leaving, the less patience he may have for arguing against my company. "Hey," I said quietly, hoping I wouldn't spook him or the horse.

He didn't even glance up, and I realized, with a jolt of mortification, that he'd known I was there all along. Of course he had; this was a man who could read stories in the earth; find facts in the way the wind whistled through the trees. This was a man you could not sneak up on. I wondered what he thought of me, crouching in the shadows, waiting for my moment. Did my actions seem predatory? Possessive? Perverse?

"Wondering when you were gonna talk," he murmured, patting the horse gently on the nose. "What do you want?"

Should I tell him I really didn't know? Should I tell that my understanding of him, the way I felt, was in constant fluctuation? My mind oscillated between desire and shame; my feelings between friendliness and something deeper, maybe a little more coy. How could I tell him that sometimes I fell asleep thinking about how he'd had his hand on my knee for a solid ten minutes as we drove away from death; but then blushed more fiercely when I thought about it rising higher?

The playing ground between us was uneven, pockmarked with valleys and mountains of age and experience, of the certainty of my attraction to him (on one level or another) and my disappointing conviction that to him, I was just the kid he'd rescued, the girl he smoked with. Perhaps I was a novelty to him, a younger person he could mould in the same way I presumed his brother had influenced him. And maybe he just enjoyed the fact that I wasn't blatantly disdainful of him, the way some of the others frequently were.

And maybe —

"Hello? Wake the hell up, girl, I'm talking to you. What do you want?"

I shook my head, as though that was all it took to unfetter myself from my uncertainty and my burgeoning anxiety. One good toss of the hair and I'd be supreme self-confidence, utterly sure of everything. "Rick said I was supposed to go with you," I blurted, and my voice didn't shake one damn bit.

Daryl's eyes found mine, the horse standing still between us. "You ride?"

Loathe to disappoint him, I began to ramble about a summer camp experience, approximately seven years previous, when I'd ridden a rather ornery mare called Mildred around a small arena. I'd been named "Handy Horsewoman" for the day, simply for the fact that, out of eighteen girls, I was the only one who'd managed not to either (a) cry or (b) fall off.

He didn't smile. Just sighed.

The whole ordeal of actually getting on the horse was over in a few short minutes. Daryl explained that I'd need to sit in front of him on the saddle, so that he would have easy access to the crossbow and I would be able to take the reins to leave him free to fire. I asked him why we didn't just take two — but he snapped something about not having time today to watch me break my neck. The prospect of being in such close proximity was a little concerning, as I hadn't exactly had _this_ in mind when I'd been hoping for some time together to figure our shit out. Nevertheless, it was progress, I assured myself as I stepped into the stirrup and felt Daryl's hands wrap firmly around my calf. He boosted me up, enabling me to swing my other leg over the horse's back and settle in the saddle.

She was a hell of a lot taller than poor Mildred.

"Shift up," Daryl muttered, and I pressed myself into the front of the saddle, trying not to pull on the reins and thus persuade the horse we were ready to move, while Daryl just had one foot in the stirrup. He eased himself into the saddle behind me; I nudged my feet forward a little more so that I wouldn't hit his, and he reached around my body on both sides to take the reins in his own hands. "You good?" he asked, not unkindly.

I nodded, and he clicked his tongue. "Walk on," he muttered, and I felt his legs contract behind mine as he gently squeezed the horse's belly. She started to move, a little leisurely at first, through the main door of the stable, and then gradually picking up to a slightly faster walk as we made our way towards the open gate. Meanwhile, my mind was in a torrent of new and repeating bouts of amazement as I reminded myself again and again that Daryl and I were currently physically closer than we had ever been.

His chest was pressed to my back; his upper arms were grazing mine. His hands were holding the reins just in front of me, just inches from my own chest. If the wind blew the right way (or the wrong way, I suppose) my hair would brush his face. This nascent intimacy was quite disarming, for the both of us, I presumed, and yet we managed to hit a comfortable rhythm by the time the horse had picked up to a slight trot, gaining the perimeter of the main field and the edge of the woods within the next five minutes.

"We're headed for the ridge?" I asked, my voice impressively steadily, especially considering I had no goddamn idea where this ridge was supposed to be.

Daryl made a noise of assent, pulling back on the reins slightly so that the mare slowed to a walk once more, a pace I was infinitely more comfortable with. "Is it true that they can tell when you're afraid?" Conversation would help, I suspected; it had always done so before. The awkward spaces between us, those valleys and mountains that we were loath to tackle, those all were filled in so well with quiet discussions about music and the woods and the bike we rode together. We two were not the type of friends to delve deep; scratching the surface kept us both safe.

That sense of safety, however, only occurred if we both participated.

"Yeah," Daryl replied. "That goes for anything though. Any kind of animal, person…something knows you're scared, it's going to do something about it."

"Like, eat you?" I mused idly, thinking of lions and tigers and bears.

Daryl snorted. "Walkers, too, then, I guess." He tightened his grip again, leading the horse through the scrubby brush dotted along the border between the farm field and the forest. As we crossed over the threshold, it was like entering another, quieter world, and I felt Daryl relax against me, as though he had come home.

I suppose, though, in a way this was the closest he had to home now — if home were the place you knew so thoroughly and instinctively that you could read any secrets or subtle changes at first glance; if home were the place you were the most potent, powerful version of _you_. I wondered where my home was, now.

It took us a solid quarter of an hour to reach the thickest confines of the forest, though someone had carved out a path at some point in recent history; the horse seemed to know the way well and contentedly plodded along. I suspected that Maggie Greene, Hershel's eldest daughter, had perhaps used this path for some of her supply runs to the local town. It stood to reason that Sophia would find comfort in such a path, a childlike instinct to go somewhere others have gone before — in the simple hope that someone nice and safe would be waiting at the other end. I found myself slipping into daydreams of simply encountering the child up ahead on the path, perhaps playing with her doll, snacking on some of the tuna she'd taken from the abandoned farmhouse. She would be taking a short break, and would look up to see us coming around the corner, and she would be safe and fine and deliriously happy…

"Riley!" Daryl shook my shoulder, bringing me back down to earth. It took me a second to gather it all in — the horse had stopped, Daryl was pissed, and the reins were being pushed into my hands. "Hold her still, and lean to the right."

I did as he said, leaning over with excessive enthusiasm, so much so that he had to snake a hand under my arm and heave me back up more firmly into the saddle, cursing as he did so. Once he had me positioned both safely and decidedly "out of his fucking way," as he put it, he trained his crossbow at a point about four yards away, where I could see a plump, auburn-shaded squirrel clasping impossibly onto the trunk of an oak tree. It happened so quickly, I couldn't object (although, really, what would've been my argument if I had? Even I had become accustomed to the slightly gamey taste of the stringy protein Daryl frequently dumped before the group's fire). "A few more of those, we'll cook up a good stew," he observed, deftly swinging his bow back over his shoulder. "Now, squeeze your legs real gentle and lead her over to that tree."

"What?" I tried to turn around — if he saw the distress written all over my face, certainly he would realize he'd temporarily lost his mind. I was terrified of her bolting, bucking, whatever the hell it was that made people recommend you wear helmets when riding.

Daryl laughed. "Jesus, girl — back in the stable you wanted to take your own damn horse!" A real, honest-to-goodness, smile broke open across his face. His was a laugh that met his eyes; a laugh _because_ of me. "It's fine….just do what I said. You can't kill us in less than ten yards."

If he'd been a different kind of guy, he would've touched my thighs to help me cue the horse. That would have been the ideal moment to cop a little feel — RJ the Destroyer would have jumped at the opportunity, I thought with a wistful smile. But either Daryl didn't give a shit, or he now had limited desire to make physical contact with me. Or maybe, I thought hopefully as I pressed my legs into the horse's side, maybe he just didn't want to make me uncomfortable. Maybe he wanted to be respectful — what a goddamn novelty.

The horse obliged, beginning to walk over to the tree as I gently directed her with the reins. I tried to infuse every fibre of my being with equal parts calm and confidence (no easy task), so that she would stay this wonderfully steady until we reached the tree. I was anxious to prove myself capable to Daryl, but not, I thought, in a slavish way. I'd had plenty of crushes before, and had participated in all those maladaptive adolescent rites: I'd played dumb, played jock, played princess, played damsel in distress, all in attempt to catch the eye of one shaggy-haired boy or another. Eventually, I'd calmed down, only trying to polish my existing attributes rather than wholesale craft new ones. Now, though, I the stage was all different: I wasn't performing against the backdrop of a northeastern prep school. This was the end of the world, and that demanded new talents.

Handling myself on a horse; killing walkers; not crying when Daryl unpinned the squirrel from the oak tree — that shit was golden. It was the best I could do towards flirting, especially when the object of my crush was seemingly oblivious to most of my furtive advances. Although, did staring at him when I thought he wasn't looking count as a flirtatious advance?

"Not bad," Daryl said, pulling the reins back around my sides and settling his hands a little closer to my lap than they had been last time. "We'll do it again later. We're getting closer to the ridge, don't need you actually killin' us."

As we moved further down the path, I could see where the edge was beginning to trim back, gradually giving way to a sloping drop of about twenty or so feet. Stubborn trees clung to the face, serving to slightly obscure the creek trickling away below. It all seemed to be one colour to me: that sandy, burnished sheen of river rocks. I glanced down and then looked back ahead, preferring not to ruminate too intensely upon what a fall from that height would do to our bodies. I presumed that Daryl would want to keep going, looking for a clearer or perhaps higher vantage point, but I was wrong. "Whoa," he said, pulling back slightly on the reins, bringing her to a stop. He heaved himself off of her back, and then, rather than giving me something to hang on to other than the horn, he looped the reins loosely around a branch.

"What is it?" I whispered, my ears pricking for any potential walkers nearby — or little girls, for that matter.

"Something down there." He pointed down the slope. "I'll be right back. Got your knife?" I pointed to my waist, and he indicated I should pull it out.

Crossbow in hand, he gingerly picked his way down towards the creek bed below. Within a few minutes, I heard him splashing through the water, and shifted on the horse to get a better view. He reached down into the water, grasping on to something I couldn't make out. "Sophia!" he called out, after appraising whatever he'd picked up. He started looking around, further down the waterway and out towards the other bank.

My heart leaped into my throat, and I hoped to God that whatever he'd found was a clue indicating she was alive and well, rather than something else. It took him less time to ascend the slope than it had to descend; I could tell he was driven by enthusiasm now, rather than curiosity. He held his find aloft as he made his way back over, though there was no smile on his face. "Is that… _her doll_?" I asked, peering at the soaked object. He nodded, and handed it to me as clambered on to the horse's back. He wasn't as careful this time, and his chin fairly rested on my shoulder as he situated himself. I held the doll gently in my hand, as though it were a real baby. She was faded, and sopping, but clearly recognizable as the cheery-faced toy Eliza Morales had given to Sophia when the family departed for Birmingham.

I'd watched the little girls' tearful goodbye, thought about Chloe.

Daryl squeezed his legs around the horse's belly, inciting her to a purposeful walk. Not being a tracker myself, I wasn't sure what this find would indicate to Daryl, how he could translate it. But he obviously suspected Sophia was in the area, or had been recently, and had made a swift decision about the rest of our journey. Questions bubbled to my lips, but I couldn't quite bring myself to ask any of them. I didn't want most of the answers, anyway. With this doll in my hand, I could live in hope.

Daryl held the reins in one hand, leaving his other loose and at the ready as we picked our way through the brush. The foliage was thick and verdant here, quite belying the October calendar date. The woods were quiet, alive here and there with flutterings and rustles in the undergrowth. It was little wonder that someone like Daryl, with his quiet demeanour and sub-surface restlessness, had found his home in the woods. Such an environment suited him, evenly matched him. The forest complemented him, I supposed.

But as with Daryl, there were sudden bursts of activity that frequently caught me entirely off-guard. A flurry of feathers and a resounding series of _caws_ interrupted my reverie and caused our horse to become skittish and panicked on the path. "Whoa, whoa," Daryl said soothingly, adjusting the reins to a reassuring firmness. For my part, I simply gripped tightly onto the horn of the saddle, pushing away images of us clattering to the forest floor.

The horse calmed, and Daryl redirected her to the path. He made a rapid series of smooching sounds that made me want to laugh, but I didn't dare — that's how girls end up walking home. Whatever the logic behind the noise, it worked, and the horse started moving back along the path, gently weaving us through the encroaching trees. We started on a bit of an incline, a change in conditions which caused me to lean back slightly, so that it became easier to actually just rest against Daryl's chest. He must have understood, because he didn't react at all, much to my surprise. We remained in that posture for nearly a full minute, until all hell broke the fuck loose.

Looking back, I'm not even sure what it was that spooked the horse. Daryl thought it was likely a snake, pointing out that nothing else could've moved that quick without us seeing it. Whatever it was, it terrified the poor horse and she reared back, forelegs in the air. I had only one hand on the saddle, the other clasped around the doll, and so I lurched back into Daryl, who then used his free hand to grip me tight to him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" But this time, she couldn't be comforted, couldn't be reassured. With one final almighty buck, she launched us clear off her back and together, we hit the ground with a resounding thud. I shrieked and swore on impact. We had moved far too close to the edge of the ravine, and so the momentum of our fall caused us to promptly roll, as one unit — since Daryl was still clutching me to his chest, and I hadn't let go of the damn doll — towards the edge of the drop-off.

We hit every goddamn tree on the way down.

But he didn't let me go.

Loose soil gave way to sheer rock, and we skidded faster down the embankment. I felt my left ankle catch on something; pain bloomed behind my closed eyes. I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to witness whatever happened to us when we finally reached the bottom.

The last few feet seemed to take an eternity to elapse; I aged years in the time it took us to crest over the last bump and then hit the water, at which point Daryl finally released me from his grip, and I was able to roll off his chest and face-plant into six inches of silty water. "Son of a bitch!" Daryl was cursing and groaning in equal measure, while I just scrambled to some sort of sitting position, trying to tally the damage. My ankle was aflame, it seemed; my face felt raw, and my left hand was stinging acutely, but other than that, I wasn't doing too bad. The fact that Daryl had kept such a firm hold on me all the way down had probably done a lot to prevent further injury, shielding me from the majority of the branches and ensuring I had landed mostly on his body when our fall had ended.

Of course, the fact that I'd gotten off so lightly meant that he had borne the brunt of most of it. I assessed him with a guilty expression and unintelligible words of apology: he had a bleeding graze on his forehead, was soaked through, and — icing on the cake — had somehow managed to impale himself with an arrow from his crossbow, which was nowhere to be found.

"Oh, shit, Daryl, I'm so sorry," I stammered, laying my hands on his chest like a wannabe faith healer. "Christ, man, oh, damn it, you've got a fucking _arrow_ in you…" I had no idea what to do: I wasn't a doctor; hell, I hadn't taken first aid since I was thirteen and hoping to start up a babysitting business. I could dislodge a Barbie shoe from a toddler's throat, but that was the extent of my medical knowledge. What the hell was I supposed to do about a man who'd inadvertently stabbed himself with his own weapon?

I glanced around wildly, as though our friendly neighbourhood general practitioner was about to come strolling out of the forest. Our situation was distressing, but by no means dire, I told myself. We were in some sort of a bowl-shaped ravine, straddled on three sides by the same sloping rock face we'd just tumbled down. Trees rose high above us all around, and I wasn't skilled enough to navigate us out of here, but _he_ was. If Daryl could get us home, then we'd have access to antibiotics and quality treatment from Hershel, a veterinarian by trade. I mean, the man had just removed a shattered bullet from Carl's chest, how much of a challenge could we pose?

Daryl heaved himself up, swearing and groaning the entire time. I leaned back, giving him space, my mind racing between possibilities for our next move. Should we rest? Should we look for the horse? Should we try to climb back up, or head for the low-lying copse of trees on the opposite bank? Could I even walk? Could Daryl?

"Riley? Riley, look at me." He took my face in one hand, cupped his fingers under my chin and forced my eyes to meet his. "Y'okay? Damn it, girl, are you good?"

I nodded, calmly at first, and then quickly blossoming into a feverish, panicked shaking of my head as I realized what had happened to us, for the first time in its fulsome dreadfulness: we were lost, injured, alone in the woods. Was this how Sophia felt? I squeezed her doll tighter in my hand as the tears came. My ankle hurt so badly; Daryl was worse off, and there was nothing I could do.

He still held my chin, though, and brought his other hand around to steady my shoulder. "Cool it, it's fine. What hurts?"

I gave him the inventory of my injuries, and he swore again, knowing the slim likelihood of me being able to walk out of here on my own steam, and that he likely didn't currently possess the structural integrity to haul my ass out of here. We were in a mess and no mistake.

He spasmed with a new wave of pain, and fell back into the water. "Aw, shit." Blood was seeping out of his side, staining the water around him. I reached over to look more closely: the arrow had entered from his back, slicing through about an inch or two of skin to come out the other side, just under his left arm. The fletching on the end of the bolt was clearly visible when he sat up again, poking out quite absurdly from his shirt. My first instinct was to gag; my second was to help him crawl to the small shoal in the middle of the creek.

We both made it on all fours, reaching for each other at odd moments — I kept one hand on his back, far away from the injury, pushing him along through the water until our knees brushed sand. While I sat and then pivoted to keep my blazing ankle submerged in the cool water, Daryl preoccupied himself with going full-ass Rambo on his own shirt, ripping off the soaked sleeves and then knotting them around the arrow still visible from his side.

Seriously, I needed to puke.

Daryl grunted with pain when he pulled the sleeves taut, and I looked away, not wanting that particular image burned to my retinas. My ankle was already starting to swell, but luckily the stinging in my hand had proven to be just a few cuts and scrapes, nothing too serious. "You good?" he asked, breathing heavily.

"Yeah. I think. You?" Charily, I rolled over slightly, dragged myself over to his side on the highest point of the shoal. He looked like shit, but then I probably did, too. Together, we took a long, dismayed look up, up, up, the forty-foot drop we'd just ridden.

How had it all gone so — oh, goddamnit, forgive me — _downhill_ so quickly? Five minutes ago we'd found Sophia's doll; ten minutes ago I'd been knocking his socks off with my equestrian skills; we were supposed to have hours together to work out whatever weird feelings were crawling around inside of us and now we were facing this climb, this isolation, this abject pain. It seemed like one big cruel joke, like the universe had observed us making inroads and thought, _Not today, fuckers_.

The first several feet wouldn't be so bad, I guessed, but beyond that the whole operation seemed impossible. Between the trees, the huge expanses of stone, and the significant amount of time and energy it would take us to climb, we'd probably be dead just trying. And yet there was Daryl, already struggling to his feet.

He exhaled raggedly, puffing out great gulps of air in an effort to ease his extreme discomfort, but it was of little use. No amount of zen breathing was going to help him here. "Daryl, hey…" He turned, his face contorted with pain. "Maybe we should just try to head out that way?" I pointed to the open forest beyond.

He just shook his head. "Sooner or later we'd have to cross the creek. Neither of us is gonna last that long…we gotta climb, get back on the path, maybe find the horse. You ain't gonna be able to walk all the way back to the farm." Daryl looked back up at the cliff face, then down at me, still curled reluctantly in the sand. He gestured to my ankle."Is it broken?"

I wasn't sure, so he stumbled back towards me and knelt back down, his knees hitting the ground with a solid thud that told me he now had no control over the measure of his actions or the placement of his own weight. Gently, he wrapped his hand my ankle, pressing and squeezing intermittently, his eyes on my face the entire time. "Don't be a fucking hero," he grunted, "tell me if it hurts."

He determined it wasn't broken, but he figured it was sprained. "You can't put your whole weight on it," he said, looking back up at the hill we had to climb. I read his next thought in his eyes: if I couldn't walk on this thing, how in the hell of it all was I supposed to climb that high, and for that long? He most certainly couldn't toss me over his shoulder and clamber up.

Daryl was torn about what to do, I could see that clearly. If he tried to push me to climb, I could be injured far worse (one more fall like that might actually kill me); on the other hand, if he left me there in the creek, with just a waterlogged .45 and a hunting knife, something far worse could happen.

Again, choices. I needed them, chased them, dreamed of them — and I made them for myself. No one I cared about was going to wear my death, not in the way I carried Chloe's around, not in those nightmares about RJ's fate, the ones that made the tent seem too small and the fire too hot as I woke whimpering and sweating on my own. No, no way. I plastered a reassuring smile on my face and reached out a hand to pat his good shoulder, in what I hoped came off as a friendly, comforting gesture, rather than any sort of awkward, folksy enticement. "It's not that bad; I'll be right behind you, okay?"

He knew I was bullshitting him, but he also knew we didn't have time to be this picky. We'd set out later today than usual; it was nearly noon. We had about five hours to somehow find a way back up that hill, and then down the path to the farm, injuries and all. After that, the dark would mean new dangers — or at least, that the preexisting dangers would become more dangerous.

The first step to safety, of course, would be actually standing up. Daryl grabbed my right hand and then tucked his other one under my left arm, pressing me against him as he helped me ease most of my weight onto my right side. A laugh burbled up inside of me at our positioning: it looked as though we were about to dance. The proximity of his face to mine reminded me just how physically close we'd gotten today, again and again — and Daryl's reluctance and reticence had seemed to fly out the window when faced with the necessity of touching me. If this comfort level would rapidly diminish once we were back at the farm, I couldn't predict, but I surely hoped it wouldn't.

Once I was fairly steady on my feet, Daryl searched my face for signs of an increase in my pain and discomfort, which I forcibly suppressed. Yes, my ankle was still burning; yes, I wanted to cry at the mere prospect of what I would be feeling within the next few moments. But we needed to get home. It was as simple as that.

* * *

My first JV field hockey practice left me bloodied and bruised, and my mom was absolutely thrilled. She picked me up in the dimming light of a late August evening, my thirteen-year-old body wracked with pain and coated in an elegant mixture of blood, grass, and the last remnants of Tina Meyers' nosebleed.

"Did you have fun?" she asked, a smile threatening to emerge from behind her usually carefully curated face.

Field hockey wasn't fun. No challenge really was. That sport brought something out in me that soccer, competitive cheering, gymnastics, or even baseball had never been able to — I came alive on the field, facing my opponents. We played rough, our league, as though to combat any accusations of privilege or softness, we the delicate ladies of the northeastern prep school elite. When we played, it wasn't about money or background, your last name or how long your family had lived in the country. We didn't talk shit; we didn't play mind games; we didn't indulge in the usual petty politics of our community. No, we put those things aside, and we just did what we had to do. Field hockey wasn't fun, not to me — it was something much more than that. It was a couple of hours each week when it was about me, my body, my brain, and my friends working together to achieve something great, something we needed. And so coming home bearing welts, scratches, and someone else's bloodstains was just a sign that we were on the right path, doing what we loved, fighting tooth and nail for what we wanted.

Memories of those rabid autumn afternoons flooded back to me as I set my aching foot at the base of the hill. Daryl was already a few feet ahead of me, grunting with pain every inch of the way. I tried to channel that vicious girl I had been on the field, the girl who would stop at nothing to help her teammates, who worked out for hours in the school gym, whose name was traded in locker-room whispers all over the Eastern Seaboard. She'd been a contender. I could do that again.

That goddamn hill was just one more opponent, no more intimidating than those ferocious teenage girls I'd walloped and been walloped by in equal measure. It was something else to be fought and beaten; a challenge I would relish, but not enjoy. In a few short hours, I resolved, taking my first agonizing step, Daryl and I would be sitting around the fire with the others, patched up and well-fed, telling them all about our harrowing fall, and the approximately eight billion trees we'd hit on the way down.

I hoped they'd laugh.

Daryl had located his crossbow somewhere in the creek, digging around the murky water for it while I'd busied myself with recalling the basic process of standing and putting one foot in front of another. He'd found it in the deepest part of the creek, at the bottom of a face of sloping rock, cascading water flowing down musically. I'd watched him closely as he sought, pushing away thoughts of bacteria and frightening parasites swimming around him, eager for the semi-open wound on his side.

Now, though, I looked up to see him still picking his way through the lush impediments that seemed to reach on forever into the sky. We were going slow, which was for the best, and Daryl was trying to support himself with a stick nearly the length of his whole body. Behind him, I'd gained about eight feet from the base of the creek. I took another few steps and drew even closer, so that my right hand, when extended, could almost brush his right foot, as he hooked it into a small divot in the hillside. He was breathing heavily, swearing occasionally, and he hadn't yet looked back to check on me.

Daryl grunted loudly as he heaved himself up about half a foot at once, pulling down on the planted stick to drag the rest of his body up to meet it. I cringed to hear his pain; my ankle was still burning, but thankfully (or, rather, worrisomely) my calf was starting to grow numb, dulling _that_ ache to a mere roar.

I looked up again, to see that he'd reached some sort of a cleft or small ridge in the hill; there was some undercutting chipped away, which could work in our favour if the sediment there was still fairly strong. If not, it could give way under Daryl's weight, sending us both careening back down. "Can you do it?" I asked hoarsely.

He exhaled deeply before replying. "I think so. Don't stay on it too long. Grab this here," he said, indicating a veiny-looking tree trunk, about the size of my wrist in diameter.

I held my breath until we'd both made it up and over the cleft.

After that, we started to move into softer, looser soil — which quickly became a problem. Daryl had a harder time digging his stick in, and it was more difficult for me to simply hang on to the dirt behind him, waiting for him to move again. Briefly, I considered shifting laterally and trying to climb alongside him, but then decided that, while still behind him, I had a better chance of catching him or at least slowing him down in case he started to slip down.

There was some light at the end of the tunnel, however: this more precarious position put us just about halfway from the top edge of the ridge and the path beyond. If Daryl could just get himself up there, we'd be safer, back on the track to home. Even if we had to crawl our way back to the farm, it was still better than being down on the creek bed, or worse — clinging to the hillside.

The steepness of the incline had increased by this point as well, so that we were both essentially vertical as we paused to catch our breath and prepare for the more arduous component of this challenge. I was soaked through with sweat and creek water; my entire leg seemed to have gone numb, and most of the cuts and scrapes on my hands had grown nearly black with soil. Daryl didn't look much better; the cut on his forehead was flowing freely now, streaking his already-damp face and hair with blood. He did, however, finally look back at me: "You good, girl?"

I nodded; tried to muster up a tired smile. Truth was, I intended on taking a nap the moment we reached the path. If he didn't like it, he could damn well carry me back home. "You?" He just laughed, a sharp, humourless thing. He tightened his grip on some of the more slender saplings dotting the hillside here, let his stick fall to the creek below.

"Uh, come on," he grunted, turning back to face his climb, this time empty-handed, "you've done half. Stop being such a pussy." He heaved his right arm up and around, grasping for another branch off to the side, aiming to pull himself up at least a foot, I guessed.

I had time to ask, "Are you talking to me?"

But that was it.

The soil gave way, Daryl lost his grip on the branches, and he plummeted down the hill one more time, knocking me clear out of the way so that this time, we didn't fall together.

* * *

This second tumble down the steep slopes of the ravine didn't really rough me up too bad — the landing did that. I came to a few moments later, or maybe a few hours had passed, I sure as hell didn't know. All I was aware of was that same throbbing pain in my left ankle, a trickle of blood from my forehead, and a strange, dull-gold flashing at my periphery. I turned my head at some commotion: in the distance was Daryl, fighting off two walkers who had somehow gotten him pinned down in a pool of shallow water. How nice for him, I thought hazily — I did shudder at the prospect of fending off walkers in this heat, but he seemed to enjoy it. He was a strange man, but I liked his company. This had been quite a nice day so far.

I yawned, and rolled over, practically begging for another five minutes. For me, the pleasantest thing about unconsciousness is that it really is, essentially, the deepest, sweetest rest you can get. I loved to languish in it, soothed by the tender flow of the creek around me, realizing that, while I slept, the pain couldn't follow me. I could just sleep, sleep, sleep…

"Fuck, girl, move it!"

My eyes snapped open. Daryl was kneeling over me, his hands shaking at my shoulders; my body jerked in response, but limply. I was made of sand, soft and lithe and warm, consisting of thousands of constellations of shifting meanings and identities. One minute, I was there with him, lying under the hot sun; the next, I was a little girl again, chasing my brothers through the park; in another second, I was with Chloe, alone on the cold, dark highway; and then I split again, and I was someone new entirely, someone aching and tired and endlessly determined to survive. It thrummed within me, an instrument being tuned, taut and alive with purpose.

Then I threw up.

Daryl quickly rolled me over to my side, so that the combination of creek water and masticated cornflakes didn't cause me to choke. "Oh, shit, Riley," he breathed, collapsing on the shoal next to me. "Oh, shit, girl."

We slept, I think, or at least he did, while I drifted in and out of consciousness repeatedly, sometimes coming to and just spending a few minutes watching his chest rise and fall, exhaustion and relief warring on his restless features. I was glad he was alive, I thought, my eyes closing once again as that lovely blackness enveloped my sight — I was glad to be out here with him.

He woke me up with a groan, and my eyes flickered open to see him struggling to his feet once again. Couldn't we just stay here, I wanted to ask? Build a fire, some shelter, and wait for Rick or Shane to come by looking for us? They knew exactly where we would be; I would've given anything to avoid climbing that goddamn hill one more time.

"We can't. Gotta keep moving," Daryl grunted, and I realized I'd been thinking out loud. He reached out a hand; I slipped mine into his, and together, we limped, swore, and generally bitched our way over to the base of the hill, where a natural sort of shelf had been formed. And then we got to work.

I helped Daryl to shift out of his flannel shirt, noting as I did that he had somehow lost the arrow from his side. "What the hell?" I whispered, and he just offered a rueful sort of grin.

"Something my brother told me," he replied. He wound the shirt around his waist, raising it slightly so that the bulk of it pressed tight against the bleeding gash on his side, then tying it securely. "Son of a bitch was right," he muttered, picking up his crossbow. Had Merle often dispensed such extreme medical advice, I wondered as I followed him down to the creek, where he helped me to settle on a fallen log. A grumbled "Need some protein," was his only proffered justification for then proceeding to maul the squirrel that he'd somehow managed to keep a hold of during both falls. He cut the poor thing open on the log, while I tried to keep the rest of my cornflakes down.

"Let me guess: your mom's recipe?" I took the tiny, unidentifiable pile of organs in the flat of my hand, watched as he licked his fingers clean, blood painting a vivid rim around his lips. "Fuck you, Dixon," I snapped, before popping the entire mess into my mouth in one go. It tasted coppery and slid unpleasantly down my throat, but other than that, it wasn't ridiculously bad. When Daryl realized I'd managed to keep it down for more than a few minutes, he offered me another handful, this time with an amused expression and a, "Fuck you, too, girl."

It took us about another hour to get fully prepared for our second climb. Daryl bathed my ankle in some cool water, waiting for the swelling to go down even just a little before we resumed our task. We collected our weapons, tucked our jeans more firmly into our boots; Daryl secured Sophia's doll into the loop of his. As I steeled myself to head up first — at his insistence — I watched him perform a task that so grotesquely "him" that I very nearly questioned my own sanity in seeking out his company so enthusiastically. There had to be something wrong with me, I reasoned, for being attracted to a man who would spend a grand total of ten minutes sawing the ears off of two felled walkers, score holes in aforementioned ears, and then string them from the knotted shoelaces of one of the former owners. And then wear it. An ear necklace. He was wearing a goddamn ear necklace.

I could cross that bridge later, I decided, have that awkward conversation ("Tell me, Daryl, what inspired that particular fashion-forward choice?"). Instead, I had a fucking mountain to climb.

Maybe it was the squirrel still cavorting in my stomach; maybe it was an adrenaline rush; maybe I had been bitten by a radioactive spider concealed somewhere in the ravine — whatever it was, the climb seemed more fluid this time. Not easier, not by means, but I was more sure of my path; less distracted by Daryl's audible suffering behind me; just single-mindedly determined to make it to the top, and then make it back to the farm. It was just a simple matter of one foot, then another; then reaching for a new support; then looking up ahead to see how much closer to the edge of the path we had gotten. My ankle was killing me, but my will had been somehow, inexplicably strengthened, so that I was sure-footed and almost graceful in my ascent.

It seemed like years ago that I'd scurried across the farmyard, nervously thrilled at the prospect of spending the day with Daryl. Now, I was filthy, bedraggled, injured, and completely and utterly invigorated with my own success. Just a few short hours ago, I'd been too scared to ride a horse ten yards — look at me now. Reaching up to the edge of the hill, I finally managed to pull myself over the top and drag my body until I was laying on top of the path, grinning stupidly up at the canopy of trees arcing above me.

"I liked it better when you was missing," Daryl said from below. Was he talking to me again, I wondered? "Yeah? Since when?"

Sitting up, I tried inching my way back towards the edge, but it was slow-going.

The adrenaline rush was fading quickly; my limbs felt lethargic and heavy. As I moved, Daryl continued speaking, pausing here and there conversationally. "You never took care of me," he said, grunting again as he presumably took another step up. "You talk a big game but you was never there. Hell, you ain't here now. Guess some things never change." Leaves rustled; dirt shifted.

I made it to the edge of the ridge and peered over. Daryl was still hanging on, one arm extended to grip a sturdy-looking sapling, the other loose and gesturing. His back was to the hill; perhaps that made it easier for him to muster his strength for that last swing upwards. "Daryl?" I said softly, torn between not wanting to startle him and needing to understand what kind of a conversation or self-talk was going on down below.

"I know what I saw," he said, swinging out and around. He looked up, and looked right through me. "You'd best shut the hell up." He dug his feet more firmly into the earth, now using both hands to hold his position.

Whoever or whatever he was talking to, they must have lit a delusional fire under his ass, because Daryl started moving far more deftly up the hillside; gripping into the soil to bring himself up, pushing back on the young trees in his way. I skittered back, slightly, leaving him enough room to slam his left hand down upon the edge of the ravine, and then reached both of my hands under his armpits to help heave him up and over. It was an awkward edge, the land suddenly shaving impossibly away to reveal the drop (which was how we had fallen in the first place, really). Nervously, I pulled him back, trying to avoid grazing his bound side, while he reached an arm over my shoulder to brace the two of us against a mossy trunk. "Easy, easy," he muttered. Did he really know I was here now? Or was he still engaged in that same conversation from below? I tried to picture the logistics of carting an injured and mentally-broken Daryl Dixon back to the farm, complete with a potentially sprained ankle.

Once he realized he'd made it, Daryl shifted into what I could only describe as a fighting stance: crouching, one arm still braced against that tree, eyes darting around suspiciously at the impenetrable forest, as though fully expecting to see something — or someone — standing there with me. "Yeah, you'd better run!" he exploded.

"Daryl?" Nervously, I tried to stand, leaning back against the tree for support. "Are you….is everything okay?"

Finally, he saw me. Looked right in my eyes, and then reached out two bloodied hands to grip my upper arms, hauling me to a painful standing position. "You alone up here? The whole time?" His eyes flashed.

I didn't quite understand what he was asking. Sarcasm rose to my lips first, but I quelled it: _Yes, Daryl, I was hanging out with the whole gang, we were just sitting around waiting for you to join us, and then they all promptly left us to crawl our asses back to camp, thinking it would build a bit of character_. No, I sure as hell couldn't say anything like that, not with Daryl's grasp getting uncomfortably tight. "Yeah, it was just me," I nodded. "Daryl…who were you talking to?"

He released my arms, eyes searching the path left and right. "We've gotta head back," he snapped. "We're gonna lose the light."

And that was it. End of conversation for the day, it appeared.

We walked in relative silence, broken only by occasional interruptions of pained grunts, groans, and curses. Hours passed us by as we made our slow return to the farm, eyes and ears alert and ready for the slightest noises or changes in our environment that could indicate the presence of walkers — priming ourselves for a fight we couldn't possibly win.

The sun was crawling ever lower in the sky by the time I finally gave up. Crumpling to the path, I started to cry, tears streaking down my face in absolute exhaustion. Without a word of either admonition or complaint, just a quietly uttered, "Shit," Daryl hooked one arm under my own, lifting my hand so that it met his other shoulder. Gripping on to my left side, he carried me with him, and we walked with the strength of three tired feet, my injured ankle bobbing only slightly-less painfully behind.

"Thanks," I murmured, and he grunted in reply. I decided I would thank him more properly once we were all bandaged up — maybe I'd cook him something, or rip the sleeves off some more of his shirts. It needed to be acknowledged, however, that without Daryl Dixon, I would've died.

Guilt rippled through me at the thought. What had _I_ done today, to save him? I'd helped pull him over the edge of the ravine that final time, but he probably could have managed that without me. Every choice, every action had been his doing…Christ, I'd lain there in the sun while he fought off two walkers! I'd been nothing more than a burden to him, an annoyance, one more unnecessary step to be considered for every single decision. And now, just as we were on the home stretch, I'd slowed him down one more time, forcing him to heedlessly expend whatever energy he had left.

I was infuriated with myself. This wasn't how I had envisioned my life in the new world: I was supposed to have been a survivor, independent and brave, capable of accomplishing any goal singlehandedly. Hadn't I escaped from the college on my own, any help I had received being sought of my own volition? Hadn't I rescued Chloe? Hadn't I pulled my weight in Atlanta?

But I hadn't. In Atlanta, I'd been a burden, too…cannon fodder. I'd been kidnapped by the Vatos because I hadn't known how to react to any situation other than the ones I carefully curated and planned myself. Today was supposed to have been about two simple things: finding Sophia; and chatting up Daryl. Everything had gone wrong, through no real fault of my own _initially_ , but my actions and decisions from that point onwards were troublesome. 'Useless,' actually, would be a better term.

I was useless, but I desired redemption. Dragging along beside Daryl, I decided that from this point on, I would never feel superfluous again. I thought I'd been moving towards something like when we left Atlanta, but then so many distractions had emerged, taking my eye off the main prize, that it had become easier to just allow myself to be, well, dragged along. Choices, Riley, choices.

"Hey, hold up a sec." I shifted, pulled myself from his embrace and eased my aching body down to the forest floor. In the distance, I could see the dappled reach of sunlight filtering through the green, but we were still about a quarter-hour's trek from it, I figured. I exhaled, gently arranging my ankle into something resembling comfort, cushioning it on a small pile of leaves. "It's going to kill you, Daryl, dragging me along," I said, glancing upwards at a visage I could not recognize.

He was breathing heavily; his face dark with mud, blood, and some emotion I couldn't name. Rage came close; grief, too. He looked down at me in silence, reached out a hand to pick me back up, but I curled away from it. "Listen," I coughed with exertion. "We're not too far from the farm…you can move faster when you're not carrying me, and I just don't think I can walk on my own. All you have to do is find Rick or T-Dog or someone who carry me back, and tell them where I am. And then you go get patched up, and I'll be there soon. I could even start crawling to meet them halfway."

Cards on the table; I tried to train my expression into one of resignation, rather than abject pain. I couldn't erase the fact that, in our very recent history, I'd cried over a sore ankle, but I could do this. I could offer him this: show him that I was willing and able to be on my own, if it meant he could be better off. This world was all about others. You couldn't make it on your own, and to be a part of a group is to be willing to sacrifice yourself.

Now, I was just offering to sit next to a tree on a warm fall afternoon, elevating my ankle and waiting the fifteen or so minutes it would take for someone else to come running with a gun and strong arms (or even a wheelbarrow would've been nice). I wasn't about to throw myself off a cliff for this guy. Nevertheless, I saw something like gratitude glister in his eyes, and, still silent, he took his own hunting knife from his waist and put it in my hands. "Two's better than one," he muttered. "Someone'll come real soon."

RJ the Destroyer would've kissed me on the head, but Daryl wasn't RJ. And that was okay, because he did brush his bloody fingers lightly somewhere in the vicinity of my crown, and he looked back seven times before he finally moved out of sight.

* * *

After ten minutes, I realized I was sitting in the woods like an idiot, and I started to crawl, Daryl's knife clenched between my teeth. I could feel the brambles and rocks and roots scraping my exposed stomach as my shirt rode up, so I tried crawling on all fours, but the pain from my ankle had once again generated some numbness in most of my left leg, and I was fairly sure I'd damaged my right knee at some point during one of our many falls, so I went back to my belly. Slithering like a snake, through the forest, biting back laughter at what I must look like.

Up ahead, the tree-line was giving way to the golden-hued expanse of the Greene family farm, close enough that I could even pick out the little copse of trees where we made our camp, squatting close to the farmhouse. Typically, at this time of day, there would be a curl of smoke rising from the treetops there, as Carol and Lori worked on supper. Today, though, there was nothing. I wondered why, as my stomach growled. Perhaps it was much earlier than I'd guessed?

I was looking at the sky when I heard the sound; when it scored through the silence of the forest; when it brought such terrible images immediately to my mind, lurid in their horror. Adrenaline pounded through me, that radioactive spider bit me one more time, and I scrambled to my feet, agony searing through every nerve at every single point in my body. My brain was screaming at me to sit the fuck back down, but I couldn't, I couldn't, because a gunshot necessitates action.

* * *

Running. Falling. Running again, breaking out into the wide green safety of home. Hands on my tired body, a thumb smudging away blood from my face. A steady tattoo of broken words, drumming in my ears and the precise notes of panic swirling on my tongue.

Is he dead? Is he dead? Is he dead?

* * *

"I want you in bed for the next few days," Hershel said, patting my good leg gently. "Keep that elevated and iced, and then we'll see about doing some homegrown physiotherapy. Can you promise me that?"

I smiled weakly, the aspirin already doing the trick and inviting me down into the feathery depths of slumber. "Will do, sir."

"That's what I like to hear," he nodded, "a reasonable patient. Mind having a discussion with Mr Dixon across the way?"

I hadn't seen Daryl since we'd been brought back into the farm. Hershel had seen to him first, since his injuries were more pressing, while Patricia, his former assistant, had cleaned and bandaged the various cuts and scrapes I'd sustained throughout the day, including a rather substantial gash on my right side that I had failed to notice. "Could you bring him a note?" I asked Hershel quietly now, as Patricia came in to retrieve an empty bowl of soup and bring me a fresh glass of water for my nightstand.

He agreed, smiling a strange smile, as though he knew a secret I didn't. There was a writing desk under the window; from a drawer there he fished out a small notebook and a pen. I jotted down my message, handed it over, and fell asleep as soon as my weary, aching, concussed head hit the pillow.

* * *

Daryl was just finishing up the dinner Carol had brought to him when the farmer entered again. Preparing himself for another argument about his alleged reluctance to heal, he shifted into a sitting position, just wanting to be left alone so he could sleep. It had been a long fucking day.

Hershel Greene held out a small piece of folded paper, smiled down at him oddly. "From your friend," he said, as Daryl took it in his own hand. He waited until the farmer had left to unfold the creases, revealing just a single word and a letter, a word that made him feel a little warmer, a little better, a little more settled.

 _Thanks — R._

* * *

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	14. Hounded

_**Chapter XIV: Hounded**_

The morning after was rough. I cried myself to sleep that night, angry and confused and worried about Michonne. Dr. Stevens was sympathetic, but by the time her alarm went off at eight, she very gently asked me to head back to my apartment. "I can get someone to go with you," she said softly, regretfully. "But I was asked to have you home as soon as you were able."

It was a long, miserable walk down those halls with the crutch Dr. Stevens had loaned me, breaking out into sunlight and the early morning hustle and bustle of downtown Woodbury. As I ambled sleepily down the sidewalk, the eyes of other citizens slid uncertainly away from me, as though to look upon the girl who had wanted to leave was to become infected, somehow. Perhaps I would make them want to leave, too.

The conversation with Merle last night had left me shaken; the prospect of being reunited with my old group was certainly attractive, but there was something inherently, deeply distasteful about the elder Dixon brother, and the idea of working with him filled me with dread. I had no desire to be alone with him, so my goal for today was to convince Andrea to work with us — if we needed to head out, I wanted her with me. Strength in numbers, and all that.

Someone had brought our bags back into the apartment, but my roommate was nowhere to be found. The beds were still made, so I tried to lay down and catch a few more minutes of sleep. I thought about Michonne — would she come back for me? Did she believe I had orchestrated the whole thing? Did she think I'd chosen Woodbury over her?

Just forty-eight hours ago, we'd sat around the table drinking coffee, for once not arguing. Andrea was telling us funny stories about some of the clients she'd met through her law practice, including a man who booked an appointment to sue a local pet store for selling him a sickly goldfish. Andrea, as a civil rights lawyer, had asked his reasoning for seeking her help, explaining that such as situation didn't constitute an infringement upon his civil rights. The man had then countered by asking if he could sue the goldfish —posthumously, of course.

Even Michonne had laughed.

And now here we were: separated, grief-stricken, infuriated. This schism that had erupted between us had changed so much of who we had been as a group — those long winter months had brought out the best of the three of us, I really thought. I had become an active, confident fighter, sure and swift and with very little hesitation. Gone were those days of Atlanta and the farm, when I'd been uncertain and cocky in equal measure. Michonne had learned to open up, to laugh, to be around people again. And Andrea….Andrea had come back down to Earth, or so I'd thought.

On the farm, Andrea had been posturing and prideful, even haughty at times. My mind still frequently flashed back to the day she'd shot Daryl, as he limped out of the woods after our terrible day. I'd come running when I'd heard the shot, despite my sprained ankle, and had cried as Rick and Shane heaved Daryl's unconscious frame towards the barn. T-Dog had half-carried me, explaining the situation haltingly, providing me enough information that I'd smacked Andrea across the face when we finally met in the field, flinging a horrific torrent of names and curses at her as T tried to ease me away. I really thought she had killed him, trying to prove herself to people who couldn't care less.

But in the woods, on the highways, in the abandoned buildings we made our home, a new Andrea emerged. A tougher woman, more resolved and focused on survival. I'd actually started to quite like her, feel more bonded with her, as we matured in this world together. Andrea in Woodbury, though, had become a different creature.

She was idealistic, I had always known that. No one became a civil rights champion without having a healthy dose of optimism. But, I mused, rolling over in the bed to gaze out at the sunny street below, _realism_ was more helpful in the world as it was. Looking for the best was all fine and good, but it could quickly become a waste of time, or even a hindrance. Sometimes you just had to search out the bare minimum, the purest essentials.

I thought Andrea had understood that, but the bright lights and warm amenities of Woodbury, along with its leader, had seduced her. And because of that, Michonne was no longer with us — she was out there on her own, without even the growling, moaning company of her two walker pets. She certainly had the skills to survive alone: she'd done it for months before encountering Andrea and I (or so I presumed; she had revealed very little of her life to us), but the point remained that she'd spent eight months with more lively companions, and had now been abandoned.

My stomach had started to growl so I searched through the apartment to find that someone had restocked our cupboards and cooler. I pulled out a couple of eggs and some peppers, set to work dicing them into some sort of skillet scramble that I then ate directly from the pan, only pausing to turn around suspiciously when the door clicked open.

"Well, ain't you a sight, darling?"

Merle was leaning against the doorframe, that same stupid smirk on his face. He held a pack of cigarettes aloft, wiggled it idly in his hand as he followed my eyes. "You're gasping for one, ain't you, sister?"

The plan came out over three smokes each, as Merle laid out his ideas for tracking down his brother and the rest of the group. "We'll start here at the farm," he said, reaching across the kitchen table with his knife-tipped arm to point at a circled location on the map of Georgia, a little to the east of the square which he'd already told me signified Woodbury. "Do some poking around, find out what's what, and then we'll increase the old search grid."

"I heard the bike," I confided, taking a long drag of my cigarette, "and at least two other vehicles."

Merle nodded. "That's good, sweetheart, real good. If they got out in vehicles, would they have headed for the highway?"

I thought about this, tried to put myself in their shoes. When I had finally managed to escape the farm, the only reason I had gone to the woods was because Michonne had led me there. If I had gotten out with the group, however, or within the confines of a truck or car, I would definitely have aimed for the highway. "Yeah, I think so. We set up a kind of meeting spot there for Sophia, if she made her way back there. Everyone knew about it; if they got separated, it would make sense for them to meet back there."

Merle started tracing out various search grid options, unsteadily with his one good hand; on another sheet of paper, I sketched out itineraries for each day, looking perhaps at the potential for the next two weeks to allow us ample time to explore each grid. I hoped that it would only last a couple of days. "Let's start at the farm today," I said, "we've still got what, eight hours of light?" I took a sip of the coffee I'd made earlier, and offered Merle a small smile. "What do you think?"

His grin faltered, and he leaned back awkwardly in his chair. "Shit, darling, I should've said…" He let his words trail off, perhaps hoping that I would fill in the blanks. When I just stared at him, confused, he resumed his sorry-ass explanation: "Look, the Governor is fine with us doing this search — he'd like Daryl and the others to be here — but he doesn't want you leaving just yet. Not today, that's for sure."

I swallowed, steeled myself. "Am I being kept prisoner?"

"No fucking way, girl!" Merle said earnestly. "It's just that, with your injuries and all the upset from yesterday, the Governor's worried about you. He doesn't want me pushing you beyond what you're ready for."

"Well, that's bullshit," I said, tears crowding my throat. I rubbed at my eyes in mortification — what the hell was wrong with me? "I'm fine… I can stay in the vehicle, but these are my friends, my _family_ , I want to help find them, Merle."

I think he pitied me, I really do. His expression softened, that sardonic grin fading away irrevocably, and I remembered his hand on the crown of my head last night, as I'd wept for Michonne. There was _something_ in him, perhaps calcified from sheer disuse or his own pain, I couldn't tell — but he wasn't entirely hardhearted. He cared. Even if it was just because Daryl was important to me, too.

"Look, kid, I know how you're feeling. But you're hurt, even you can't deny that." He stood, looked down at me with that same expression. "You stay here for today, and maybe tomorrow we'll see about getting you out there. Rest up your leg, and we'll talk when I get back."

He left, taking the map and my hopes with him, stomping down the stairs and slamming the ground-level door as though he hadn't just reduced me to an injured, incapable crybaby sobbing into her coffee. But he did. And I was.

The rest of my day passed by in painful, tiring increments; I tried to push my ankle as far as I could, pacing around the apartment with gradually increasing intensity until, by the time Andrea quietly entered in the late afternoon, I was flat on my back on the bed, cursing and dousing my injury with cold water. "Oh, Jesus, honey," she said, and her concern was genuine.

When she held me, she didn't remind me of my mom. A million times before she had: they both possessed an assertive, dominant personality, that often railroaded (with good intentions) across the needs of others. But my mother, as much as she loved me, would've seen my weakness and self-pity in that moment, understood that I was backsliding, falling into old habits, and she would have shored me up, rather than slide right down with me.

I needed the hug, though.

"I don't want her to think I abandoned her," I wiped my dripping nose as Andrea rubbed my back firmly. "That I just lost my shit at the end and turned away from her."

Andrea made a noise of derision. "She won't think that, Riley. In fact, I was really surprised she pushed you to leave at all; and then to just walk away after the gates shut —" and here she exhaled, as though to express her disbelief — "it's okay, hon. She'll come back, I'm sure; she just needed some time out there, to adjust to in here."

But that didn't make sense, I wanted to scream, as Andrea began to busy herself with tidying up the absolute mess I'd made of the kitchen. Michonne knew I wanted to leave, just as much as she did; she would've turned back for me, waited for me, called out my name, because she'd definitely understood that I wanted to leave — I'd cried and told her I wanted to stay. Just yesterday morning. I'd begged her to stay, so that I could find my group. So that I could find Daryl.

"You want another coffee?" Andrea's voice broke through the panic, the overwhelming, swelteringly hot waves of bitter regret.

Distractedly, I accepted, wrapping my hands around the warm mug as once more, my eyes filled with tears that this time, I refused to shed. No more crying.

"The truth is," Andrea said, sitting down at the table with her own mug, "I just had an interesting conversation with the Governor about what happened last night."

"Hmm?" I replied distractedly; my mind was racing, far too quickly for me to concentrate on more than my troubled, anxious thoughts and the simple steps of drinking my coffee. It seemed as though the thoughts were swirling around a mental drain somewhere in the recesses of my brain: around and around, tightening concentrically, focused on the single, solitary endpoint telling me that _I had betrayed Michonne_.

"It was…informative, to say the least," Andrea continued. "I mean, I understand the need for reassuring the people, all of that, of course. But there's a big difference between them being comforted, and being unafraid of the biggest threat out there, you know? And I know now that's why those walkers were being kept penned up, the ones Michonne found, and I just —"

"Wait," I interjected. "Hold up; what are you talking about?"

The Governor, Andrea explained, had hosted an event the night before, while I'd been asleep in the doctor's office. The main attraction? A gladiatorial encounter between various Woodbury champions (including Merle, of course), facing off against toothless, nailless walkers being held back by chains and sticks. The champions would bait the walkers, getting closer and closer, in an odd dance, until pulling back at the absolute last minute, at which point they would draw back and proclaim an empty victory — all to the immense roar of the passionate crowd.

I asked why, why the Governor felt like this was something they had to do. Andrea could only shrug in response. "Why not, I suppose, is his logic. He doesn't want his people to be scared of what's going on out there."

"Being scared is what keeps you alive now," I retorted.

"Hey," she said, palms up, "I'm on your side here." She stood and padded over to the window, gazed out at the dimming view outside. "Although, the more I think about it…maybe it does make a little sense."

"Jesus, Andrea," I shook my head. "No, it doesn't. When you're out there, those walkers have teeth, they have nails, they have pure adrenaline and pure instinct. They want to rip us into pieces and these people need to understand that. Trying to turn this place into the goddamn Colosseum is not going to prepare them; they're not the gladiators out there. They're the lions with their backs to the wall, the slaves dumped in the middle of the killing ground. We. Are. The. Prey." I rapped my fist down on the table in time with my final four words.

Andrea turned to look at me, her eyes heavy and sad. "But we're in _here_."

"You think that matters?" I slammed both fists down on the table this time, my voice rising several decibels as I did. "You really think that fucking matters?" I was practically screaming at this point; I figured someone would be in shortly to restrain me again, but I viewed this potentiality with a sense of detachment. "This is bullshit, Andrea! All of this! Michonne was right, from the beginning. These people are going to _die_ , Andrea — they're all going to die because they trust some cocky shitheads to have enough bullets to take down a herd of walkers!"

Tears coursed down my face as I stood, moving around the table and pushing Michonne's empty chair out of my way. "Do you remember the highway? Do you remember that herd? Remember how you had to hide in the RV, how Daryl had to pull a dead walker on top of me and we had to watch them drag by us and know that the slightest movement could bring them all down on us?" My voice cracked, dipped, and shrieked, losing power as I lost my will. "Do you remember Sophia? That little girl died, Andrea, and she had all of us 'protecting' her, and she died, she died, she fucking _died_!"

Firm arms came around me; holding my shoulders as I fell to the floor. I was screaming, screaming, endlessly screaming until I felt my lungs burst, my heart break, and my limbs fall weightlessly down, down, into the deep, dank depths of my own secret misery.

* * *

"She's not well, Andrea."

"What am I supposed to do? She's my friend. I care about her."

"God, Andrea, I was a father — I care about the girl, too. It's because I care and I worry about her that I'm suggesting this."

"But locking her up…Phillip, that's so harsh."

"Not at all. She'll be safe and cared for. No one is locking her up. She just needs some time away from this painful stimuli — remembering Michonne, anxiety over her old group. I had a serious talk with Merle about dredging up all of those memories."

"Do you think he'll find them?"

"I hope to God he does. But Riley didn't need to know about them until they actually got here. She's going out of her mind over all of this."

"No locks?"

"No locks. Just good meals, peace and quiet, and some maternal comforting. Bev and Curtis will be good to her, I promise. They're great people; they want to help. Beverley used to be a school nurse; she'll have dealt with things like this in young people before."

"No locks."

"No locks."

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this chapter! If you have the time to provide some feedback, that would be very much appreciated :)


	15. Made To Suffer

_**Chapter XV: Made To Suffer**_

The click of the lock seemed to echo through every inch of my skull, banging about the nooks and crannies and giving birth to that old, familiar ache of the perpetually-concussed. After three days, however, I was used to it: the lock clicked after meals and bathroom breaks; after the door swung open wide enough for Curtis to reach in a new activity: a puzzle, a book, some drawing paper. A child to be entertained, I was; starring in a grotesque parody of happier times.

Today, it was a notebook and some crayons. Not pencils, and never pens — I might look for my own jugular with one of those. I flicked on the small camp light I'd been permitted and gazed down at the white, virgin expanse of the first page. What should I do, I wondered stupidly? What should I draw? Like it or not, I had a few hours to kill until my next meal, and then my daily conversation with the Governor. He liked to sit in a chair just outside my door, chat to me through the crack. I loathed those sessions: forced to listen to his sanctimonious, self-congratulatory descriptions of what Woodbury would become, and those irritating questions about whether or not I wanted to be a part of it all. Over and over again, he questioned me about Rick Grimes, the group I had been with once upon a time. As time wore own, I grew more and more impudent in my responses, snarking frequently about the foolishness and hubris permeating his settlement; making vague but inflammatory insinuations about how it would all end. "Those walls aren't invincible," I'd said yesterday, at which point he'd silently left.

It would've behooved me to simply play along with what I knew he wanted to hear. Adulatory praise, heaped by the bucketload, would have been so much more effective in gaining my liberty. The truth was, however, that I had no idea what I would be heading towards, once free. My ankle was still troubling me, and the sedentary nature of my imprisonment certainly wasn't helping. By the second day, I set myself to a few stretches, easing out the tension in my muscles and aiming to get my blood pumping, even marginally so. It all did little more than pass the time.

I didn't feel threatened, though I was enclosed against my will. I doubted that the Governor had guts enough to murder me or even have me killed. I suspected that he had never yet anyone who had turned down everything Woodbury had to offer — to him, Michonne and I were strange, disruptive. He wanted us gone, or assimilated. Michonne had left, but there was still hope for me.

Or so he thought.

In reality, his actions had convinced me even more so that the place we had found was the not the place any human being needed. Those tall walls — symbols of protection and strength to the sheep milling around outside — they were props, meaningless assemblages of wood and nails and sheet metal; susceptible to rot and rust and structural frailty. They would fall, one day, despite their tender care and upkeep. And the world would rush in, consume these people, remind them what they had forgotten: we were prey. Always had been, always would be. As humans, we had spent millennia crafting culture and illusion to protect us from this fundamental fact. But when all of that was stripped away, we were reduced to our core essence: running, fearing, hiding, living until you die.

And so I sat, in the dim light of that closet, drawing pictures of trees with blunt crayons, and counting the hours until the world rushed in, as I knew it would. I just had no idea it was rushing in to save me.

* * *

Before, anxiety had never really been too much of an issue for me. I had the typical concerns of an overachieving high schooler: grades, extracurriculars, college applications, keeping my parents happy, getting enough shifts at the bookstore I worked at most afternoons. I fought with my brothers and occasionally my parents; I squeezed in extra workouts to relieve tension; I planned for my future with the studiousness I was wont to apply to pretty well every activity or task put in front of me. I was detail-oriented, somewhat prone to a bit of worry.

When I got to college, things intensified. Sometimes, it felt like my mind was a train running off its tracks — around and around and around, too close to the edge, threatening to spill over into chaos and destruction if the slightest element were altered. I maintained a fairly steady mental state for the most part, with a few exceptions: a panic attack in my first year of school; approximately three weeks of a mild, anxiety-induced depressive state that saw me unable to get out of bed most days; and what I now classified, in retrospect, as the impulsive, nervous break that saw me drag my poor, sick friend from the only safety we had into the wide, wild world that saw her death.

While I was aware, in the dark closet, that my actions hadn't directly caused Chloe's death, the guilt that I had taken away her warm bed, her regular meals, and her armed guards (however distasteful the state of their leadership had been growing) was beginning to gnaw away at me with more enthusiasm than ever before. I recognized that the cool detachment — the efficiency, and careful planning; swift decision-making — I had displayed during those days leading up to our escape, her death, and meeting Daryl, were likely indicators of some sort of mental collapse on my part. Many of my anxiety issues throughout college had featured some of those same hallmarks. They were reactions, or rebellions — as my therapist had termed them — against the anxiety. I mustered up some sort of strength to face my fears and worries, and took action against them.

Now, my anxiety was beginning to brew once more. As it had boiled over in the clearing, at the helicopter crash site — I could sense that coil tightening in my chest. It had been present since we arrived in Woodbury, flexing taut and springing loose at odd moments. The oscillation between a state of anxiety and relief was possibly more stressful than being consistently on alert. I knew that the moment of no return was fast approaching: that the application of more stress, more concerns, more threats would, at some point, overstimulate my already-exhausted mind, and I would lash out again, as I had in the woods, and in the apartment just a few days ago. It was like watching a storm gather on the horizon: I knew it was coming, but had no clue about when it would actually hit.

The fourth day was the longest. At least, I'm assuming it was day; within the confines of my little closet, I had no way of knowing whether it was night or day, and though Curt was regular about the intervals between my meals, I didn't know if the cycle had been initiated in the middle of the night or early on the morning after I had had my meltdown in the apartment. I had been drugged soon after the Governor had restrained me; and I'd woken up later in the closet.

On the whole, however, since the beginning of my imprisonment, I had shocked myself with the unearthly sense of calm I seemed to possess about the entire issue. Yes, any semblance of agency I had once enjoyed had been firmly taken away; yes, I was being kept, quite literally, in the dark; and sure, I had no clear idea of when my freedom would be restored to me, or if I was even going to make it out of this closet alive. In spite of all that, as I settled down on this fourth day to my regular conversation with the Governor, I was quiet and serene, sitting calmly in my preferred spot (resting against the back wall of the closet, legs twined in front of me, focusing my eyes on the chink of light filtering through the clasp of the doors), and patiently waiting for my daily dose of self-aggrandizement and messiah-complex.

"How are you, sweetheart?"

He always began that way: paternally and softly, as though I were merely an ill or errant child, set before him to be comforted or disciplined in equal measure. He always began with an endearment, something to establish him, I suspected, as having the upper hand. And I always replied thus: "Not too fucking bad."

He chuckled a little at my reply, my juvenile assertion of courage. "That's grand, Riley, that's real grand. Do you know why I'm here?"

"To exchange meaningless pleasantries while ostentatiously stroking your own ego? Or is to maintain some semblance of empathetic interaction with me to assuage any suspicions on Andrea's part? Does she still think I'm here to get happy? Or does she know now that I'm being held against my will?"

"Oh, sweetheart, I ain't here to stroke anything," he murmured. "Jesus, girl, you sound like you swallowed a dictionary."

I smiled in the darkness. "I've had some time to plan my response."

"You are a real ticket, kid, I'll give you that." I heard the sound of a door closing quietly, and I knew then that Curtis, my keeper, had left. Down further into the apartment he shared with the wife who thought I was an actual lunatic, and who prayed loudly for me each night. Curtis' absence was a new development, that made my ears prick up in slight alarm. He always stayed: answering some of the Governor's questions throughout my interrogation; offering his own tiring testimonies as to the innumerable virtues of Woodbury. He had never left us alone before.

"I'm here today to talk about your friend, Rick."

A curtain flew down in my heart: show's over; go home.

"I just want to know a little more about him. Andrea won't tell me too much — but she's more of a surface person, you know that. She skims the first few inches of someone, hits the highlights, but nothing else. You though," — and here, he must have leaned forward in his chair slightly, judging by the creaking — "you strike me as someone who delves a little deeper. You're quieter; introspective. You're a thinker and an observer, Riley, and I admire that."

I would tell him nothing. I hadn't yet, but he kept pressing. My memories of and my hopes for Rick and Daryl and Lori and Carl and all the rest, they were sacrosanct, not for him. Anything I had shared with Merle was purely born of my awareness that he too cared about Daryl, wanted to find him for the right reasons. But now, with time to think and ample opportunity for my anxiety to bloom brighter and more sickly in my chest, I knew I shouldn't reveal anything else.

Whoever this Governor was, he wasn't the type of leader anyone needed. Lying to his people, beguiling them into believing they were still on the top of the food chain — he had signed their death warrants himself. And fearless, gracious leaders weren't often, to the best of my knowledge, in the habit of barricading young women in closets in order to pump them for information. I could not trust him.

"Fuck off."

He slapped his knee. "Oh, shit, Riley, I'll say it again: _you are a ticket_. A little spitfire, Merle called you, but I thought he was just angling to get you into bed. His brother's sloppy seconds, I guess." He chuckled.

"But in all honesty, sweetheart, I need to know something about Rick. You've kept quiet for the past couple of days, and I've tried to be patient. The thing is, Merle is going out on the daily to find these people, and they're more than welcome to come back with him, but I'd just like to know what to expect. If you won't tell me about Rick, how 'bout you tell me a little about Daryl Dixon?"

 _Tattooed hands on the wheel; a cigarette smouldering between chapped lips; bloodstained flannel shirt, sodden and ripped; hesitation and awkwardness and good intentions swirl around behind a crafted façade of belligerence. And I smile at it all, because I might be in love._

"Go to hell."

The door was wrenched open before I had the second syllable out; afternoon sunlight flooded my space and I blinked hopelessly as a hand wrapped around my throat. I observed this all with a curious detachment: logging details as though I needed to record them in my diary later. He tightened his grip, and stars burst somewhere in my periphery. "You listen to me, bitch — I've had enough of that." He didn't yell; he didn't need to, and he knew it. His deadly calm voice was more than persuasive. "I'm going to ask you some questions, and you're going to provide me with very clear answers, as civilly as you can. I don't need a goddamn song and dance; I just need information. If you understand, blink twice."

I acquiesced, and he released his hand, shoved me back against the wall, and smirked. "Better. Now, tell me about Rick Grimes. He a good leader?"

"Rick Grimes is stronger than you'll ever be capable of," I said with a smile, rubbing idly at my neck. "If he's coming here, you'd better watch the hell out, _Governor_."

* * *

The beating was less persuasive than his voice. I was silent throughout. After about seven minutes, he tired, and left me curled in the foetal position, streams of tears and snot racing each other down the length of my face, a ghoulish laugh bubbling from my throat. "That all you got in you?" I hollered after him, counting the pounding of his steps. "Don't leave a girl hanging!"

And then it began, that long wait. I lay on my back first, staring up into the black expanse of the closet, hoping for some glimpse of the ceiling, but whatever he'd done to me, I couldn't find it. Why couldn't I find it?

I mumbled, talked to myself, because I was so tired of being alone. Just four days I've lasted, just four days of big talking and smart-ass remarks, that's all I've got in me. Four fucking days of reliving that rebellious phase my parents had to endure during the absolutely horrific transition between childhood and my teenage years. I'd mouthed off. When they found me, dead of internal bleeding or starvation or suffocation or however I was going to go, would they know that's what really killed me? Being a smart-ass?

I talked about Chloe and RJ, the way it felt the first time I got drunk. I talked about my home, before all of this, a place where moms tucked you into bed even though you were seventeen years old and where brothers loved you, really, even though they called you Princess Buttface. I talked about the taste of a southern summer; about the feel of a cigarette between my fingers; the sound of Daryl's breathing across the vast expanse of the tent we'd silently started to share. I talked about how it felt to fall in love in a broken, dying world: how it felt like I was swearing in a church every time I looked at him — a sin and a joke and a profound compulsion all in one.

I talked and talked for hours; and no one came. I talked into the silence until my voice gave out, curling away into nothing like the smoke of the cigarette I so badly craved. I talked until memory swept over me and the anxiety burst forth and my hands started to shake. Tears coursed down my face and drenched the floor I lay on; I hummed a song I'd once loved, words I could scarcely remember and which seemed to be in another language to me now, foreign and lyrical.

I talked and talked, as I broke into a sweat and bruises painted my body in varying shades of blue and green and violet. I just talked about Glenn, something funny he'd said one day back at the farm. And I talked about Michonne, about how she had saved my life, pulling me from that goddamn well. And then _he_ had taken her from me. That fucking bastard, I wanted to scream.

I talked and talked, until I finally fell asleep. Down I drifted into the deep pits of my own subconscious, where I ran through dreams of snarling enemies mired in shadow; of hands that grabbed from nowhere; of falling endlessly down the stony slopes of that ravine. Falling, falling, falling…

A door slammed in the real world, and I snapped awake. "I know you're in here," I heard Curt say, "I saw you moving from outside." Four steps. "Alright, now, you're not supposed to be in here, and you know it." Seven more steps. "Who's in here?"

I sat up, intrigued, my hands steady now by my side. I heard a soft but firm _thump_ , clothing and flesh against a wall, I guessed. "Shut up, get on your knees." Another thud. "Hands behind your back. Zip tie him."

Even after months apart, even after these four days and the way my mind felt ragged at the edges now — even after all that shit, I recognized that voice. That honeyed southern drawl, low and insistent now, but so familiar. I tried to shape his name, but I could not find my voice. "Where are our people?" demanded Rick Grimes.

"I don't know, I don't know." Curt was panicked, and my heart constricted in sympathy for him. He seemed a nice man; he'd been nothing but kind and gentle to me, just following orders. The Governor had likely convinced him I was sick, going insane, and I honestly believed Curt had been trying to keep me safe.

But Rick didn't know that. "You're holding some of our people, where are they?"

Curt repeated his proclamation of ignorance, and I tried once more to say Rick's name. This time, I managed a slight gasp. Outside the closet, Rick gagged my guard, the one person in the room out there who could tell him about the girl in the closet. Was I going to die in here, with my people just outside the door?

 _Riley, you goddamn idiot — bang on the fucking door_.

When it opened, I was still prostrate on the floor — still entrenched in a deep panic, weeping silently, incapable of forming clear words. I felt infinitesimal, minuscule, forgettable. As the flashlight swept over me, I thought for a moment I had imagined it all, that the train had finally left the tracks, and Rick was gone, Daryl was gone, Michonne was gone, I was gone.

I curled into tight arms, felt someone else's tears soak the crown of my head, and I began to rock back and forth to the tattoo of another's mumbled, incoherent words of relief. "Oh, my God, kid, what did they do to you?" Michonne's voice trembled on the endearment, shook in the face of her own unsaid fears.

"D'd'you touch her? You hurt her?" In the darkness over Mich's shoulder, I could see Daryl rounding on Curt, kneeling on the floor with his hands bound behind his back and a rag stuffed into his mouth. Weakly, I attempted to get Daryl's attention, explain that I was fine, that all was well, but only a rasp emerged from my mouth. I reached out a hand to him instead, grazing his bare arm, and he turned, blue eyes bright in the darkness.

"Who put you in here, Riley?" Rick asked, crouching down in front of me, his hand gently brushing back tangled, sweaty curls from my face. "Who did this?"

I couldn't do it; the words got lost somewhere between my brain and my mouth. All I could manage was a faint croak and a rueful smile of apology. What did it matter, I wondered? I was back with them, _all_ of my people, Michonne included.

"Here." A plastic bottle of water was pushed into my hands, and I looked up into the kind face of a tall black man, gazing at me with concern. "Drink something, kid."

The room was illuminated by the slight shine of a single flashlight, but it was enough for me to tally my rescuers: Daryl, Rick, Michonne, and this new man. I hoped that the absence of so many others indicated that they were safe somewhere, holding down a fort, rather than the unhappy alternative. "Thanks," I rasped, after downing at least half of the bottle.

"Did the Governor do this to you?" Michonne whispered.

It was then that I remembered what I must look like: the bruises I could see, dotting my arms and beneath the rips in my jeans, were vivid and numerous. I suspected there were more, hidden now beneath my clothes, and that my face looked much the worse for wear, perhaps accounting for the expressions of abject horror written clear upon those of my friends.

But that didn't matter now, couldn't they see? What mattered was that they were there, I was with them once again. Over and over again, pure wonder swept over me, as I squeezed Michonne's hand in mine, as Rick worriedly examined my injuries, as Daryl studiously avoided my gaze. Could this be real? Or was I well and truly broken, lost in some pleasant imagining, wrought from my aching, overwhelmed mind?

"We can worry about that later," I coughed, taking another swig from the bottle. "Can we go now?"

Michonne and Rick exchanged a look I couldn't interpret. "You could take her back out to the road," Rick ventured, but Michonne shook her head.

"I've got business to attend to," she snapped.

"She's not going back out there on her own." Daryl's interjection came as a veritable growl. "We could hide her here until we leave."

Rick just shook his head. "Too risky. If our escape doesn't line up…she could end up being left behind." They continued in this vein for another few minutes, each tossing back and forth several reasons why I should either remain here in this attic or be escorted out to the highway.

None of them, however, brought up the most obvious solution, so I simply had to: "Why don't I just come with you?"

The general atmosphere of the room immediately came to resemble the sort of stunned tone attendant to the moments following a shocking, absurd, or otherwise outlandish revelation. Four faces turned to me, lit by slivers of a yellowish glow. Each of them bore an expression of incredulity, Daryl's in particular so forceful that I had to stifle a hoarse laugh. "Oh, come on, I'm fine," I said, wriggling gingerly from Michonne's grasp. "Just tell me the plan — I promise I can keep up."

What followed was a whispered argument of such epic proportions that I was sure we would be discovered by the pitch of Michonne's expletives alone. She and Rick pointed out the various reasons why I should _not_ under _any circumstances_ be allowed to travel with them through Woodbury, as they enacted their rescue operation. It was from this argument that I discovered the objective of their mission here was not, as I had assumed, to retrieve Andrea and myself, but rather to bring Glenn and Maggie home, as well as the two unnamed women Michonne had been travelling with. Rick and Daryl hadn't known who we were; my presence was a significant shock, thus accounting, perhaps, for the tears welling up in the former's eyes as he continued to look me up and down.

Glenn and Maggie had been kidnapped on the road, out on a supply run, brought here to Woodbury, they assumed, for questioning. Somewhere in the town, they were being held, and it was now our goal to find them and bring them back to the rendezvous point on the highway. Beyond that, there was little time to share any other information. Rick was visibly upset at the prospect of carting me around Woodbury in my state, but Daryl's sharp interjections pointing out that any other option left me even more at risk, or swiftly curtailed their further aims — that grumbled argument seemed to resign Rick to the inevitable.

As we made our way out of the apartment and down into the street, it occurred to me that they really had no idea how much I'd grown since the farm. Back then, I'd been well-intentioned but naïve: in Atlanta, I had demonstrated this with great style and memorability. Rick and Daryl hadn't seen me in months, though: they knew nothing of my escape from the farm, that long winter in the woods. They had no idea that I had honed my fighting skills, tracking and hunting. If I were to encounter half the obstacles I had once faced trembling, I really believed I would be capable of combating them easily and — on second thought, as I glanced over at my reflection in a shop window, maybe I should take a few days off.

My face was a Warhol painting of black and blue; my lip split neatly at the cupid's bow. The brown shirt and faded jeans that had served me so staunchly throughout the entire winter were now ripped and bloodstained. Both of my hands were shaking, whether from pain, hunger, or exhaustion, I did not know. Well and truly, I looked beaten and battered. Not precisely the image of "warrior queen" or "fearless badass" I'd been envisioning.

"We'll stick together for now," Rick muttered, "but when it comes down to it, Riley, you come with me, understood?" I nodded, and together, moving fluidly and swiftly along, we made our way down the darkened, sleeping streets of Woodbury. We eased our way around the corner of another brick building, similar in size and appearance to the one I'd been kept in. We were about two blocks down from the apartment I'd shared with Andrea and Michonne. There was no light on the third floor; was Andrea sleeping peacefully beside the Governor tonight?

"There." Michonne gestured to an alleyway just to our left. It occurred to me, following closely behind Rick, that I possessed no operative knowledge of this mission beyond, of course, the end goals. Add to that, I held no weapons; my knife and gun had been taken from me at some point over the past several, disorienting days. If it came down to a fight, I hoped I would be tossed something useful, but just in case, I began to scan the ground of the alley for any likely looking implements.

At the end of the alleyway, about three large, storage buildings emerged into view: all covered with vertically corrugated sheet metal, possessing a few security lights here and there. We crouched beneath a small window, and began a furtive, silent assemblage and trade of weaponry. Daryl pressed a hunting knife into my left hand, and a fairly weighty .45 into my right. "Stay out here, Riley, please," Rick whispered, spotting the exchange.

In retrospect, I'm sure Rick realized that his request was in no way reasonable. The altercation that ensued once he had tossed the smoke grenade to his left, where a group of about five or eight people were moving — that chaos made it impossible for me to consider curling up in the corner and hoping to stay hidden. As if that's what I would have wanted, in any event. When Maggie and Glenn were pulled from around the corner, both shaking and bloody, I felt adrenaline begin to rush through my lethargic body and I sprang taut and angry into motion.

I fired a shot in the general direction of the Woodbury group, once I had determined that both Maggie and Glenn were with us. Her hand reached out to grasp my shoulder, as though we had all the time in the world to celebrate this reunion; all I could muster was a small smile, as I aimed another three shots at the others, this time hitting one in the leg, another in the arm, and scaring the shit out of a third.

"Go, go, go." Daryl's whisper was hot and panicked in my ear as he pushed me back towards whence we had come. "Hurry." I was half a beat behind Michonne; up ahead, an injured Glenn was being supported by Rick and Maggie. So far, so good.

It took us a couple of minutes to get out of the alley undetected, and we made for one of the more artful buildings in town. At one point, it had been a vintage department store; now it housed a few apartments upstairs and a communal cafeteria down below. The wide arched windows, I worried, would leave us exposed. But we had no time to argue, and I wasn't in charge here. "Inside, quick," Rick demanded.

Once inside, Maggie settled Glenn against a cupboard towards the back of the building, while Daryl and the newcomer (I still hadn't caught his name) checked around for an exit. I racked my brains trying to remember the last time I'd been in, nearly two weeks ago. Had there been a back door?

"Ain't no way out back here," Daryl growled. I opened up another door, this one off to the side, only to find a broken mop and several bags of flour.

"Rick, how did you find us?" Maggie demanded, and I knelt beside her, trying to gauge the extent of Glenn's injuries. He had sustained a beating, but there was no way of telling how much internal damage had been done. On the outside, he was bloodied and bruised, his right eye hidden behind some significant swelling. The fact that he seemed aware of everything around him was a good sign, though.

"How bad are you hurt?" Rick asked. Glenn, stubbornly resilient as ever, assured him they'd be all right.

"Where's that woman?"

I turned, expecting to see Michonne standing guard by the door we'd just come through, but she was nowhere to be found. That was impossible, I wanted to say. Michonne wouldn't leave me, wouldn't leave us. I recalled the slam of the main gates, keeping here out there in the real world while I was left behind here. Had she thought, as I'd feared, that I had orchestrated that? That I had intended to reject her?

Outside, a crowd was gathering, likely drawn by the shots we'd all fired. The street was illuminated by the flickering of flames, lighting the cafeteria with a sliver of bright orange as Rick pulled back the curtains just a little. "She was right behind us," he muttered.

Daryl offered to go look for her, but Rick just shook his head. "We gotta get them out of here. She's on her own." He stood, engaged and ready by the front door. Daryl and the new man hurried forward from the back of the store, and I checked the magazine. I still had about five rounds left. My knife, then, would have to be my first resort. I tried to balance the two in my hands, so that I could simply toss the gun away once it had been used up. Noting this, the new man rummaged around in a duffel bag that had somehow hit the floor. He handed me a chunky Glock 17. "She's full," he said, lining himself up behind Rick, "and by the way, I'm Oscar." He smiled.

I secured the new weapon in the back of my jeans; I'd empty the .45 first and then throw it down if necessary. I handed my knife back to Daryl, muttering something about not having a holster. He nodded, took it back, and shoved it into the leather holster at his waist. "It's there if you need it." He turned at the sound of his name from the back of the room. Maggie still hadn't managed to help Glenn up; he certainly was looking the worse for wear. "Daryl," he said again, as his girlfriend eased a hooded sweater around his shoulders. "This was Merle. It was. He did this."

The darkness of the room obscured Daryl's face a certain amount, but not enough to completely conceal the burgeoning notes of panic and pain blooming across his features. I thought back to those moments at the quarry, when he'd found himself at odds with the entire group over what Merle had done. Was he to live his entire life bearing guilt-ridden witness to Merle's mistakes? He moved closer to Glenn, that cagey hesitation back in his walk, the one he'd lost at the farm.

Rick cleared his throat. "You saw him?"

"Face to face," Glenn replied, shoving his arms into the sweater. "Threw a walker at me. He was gonna execute us."

"S-so, my brother's this Governor?" Daryl bent down to address him, but his eyes flicked up to meet mine, and almost without thinking, I reached out a hand to rest on his arm, shaking my head furiously.

"No, it's somebody else," Maggie explained. "Your brother's his lieutenant or something."

"Does he know I'm still with you?" He looked back and forth from Maggie to me, searching for apology or absolution, I couldn't tell. My hand was still on his arm; he hadn't jerked away, hadn't called me out, so I left it there, just in case he needed it.

"He does now. Rick, I'm sorry," — Glenn tried to shift up, gearing himself for the pain of standing — "we told him where the prison was. We couldn't hold out."

"Don't," Rick said firmly. "No need to apologize." He moved closer to the window, looked out again. "Can you walk? We've got a car a few miles out."

"I'm good." Rick and Maggie helped Glenn to his feet with a groan that belied his assertion of stability, heading for the door.

"Hey, if Merle's here, I need to see him." Whether he realized it or not, Daryl manoeuvred so that my hand slid down his arm, to be grasped in his own. It was a wholly unfamiliar pose to the both of us, but somehow, under the circumstances (and judging by the audible vulnerability in his voice), it was understandable, completely natural.

Rick sighed. "Not now. We're in hostile territory."

"He's my brother. I ain't — "

"Look at what he did!" Rick hissed, leaning forwards. "Look, we gotta — we gotta get out of here now."

Daryl's face fell, etched with both earnestness and regret. "Maybe I can talk to him. Maybe I can work something out." In this moment, he sounded, and looked like, a little boy.

"No, no, no." Rick gazed wildly around at our assembled, weakened party. "You're not thinking straight. Look, no matter what they say, they're hurt. Riley is, too." Daryl glanced down at me, tallying my bruises and my cuts. "Glenn can barely walk. How are we going to make it out if we get overrun by walkers and this Governor catches up to us?" Rick's eyes were fairly pleading with Daryl, entreating him to put family over family, to make an impossible choice. "I _need_ you. Are you with me?"

Daryl was tense, shaking with the effort of his decision. Whatever Merle was, whatever he had done, he was Daryl's brother. Hope would always stand between love and logic, and that's where Daryl was ensnared now. I squeezed his hand, his eyes met mine, and there was nothing to say, nothing I _could_ say. "Yeah," he muttered.

* * *

Outside, the world was still and inky, lit only intermittently by street lamps and the glow of flashlights that curved and looped suddenly around corners, keeping a staccato time with their owners' footsteps. Daryl simultaneously heralded and concealed our movements by tossing out a second smoke grenade, and then a third; we waited for the sounds of someone taking notice. We headed left, veering away from the direction he'd launched the grenades.

And then the night was no longer still.

Flashes seemed to precede the gunfire, to my tired eyes. I stuck close behind Rick, as he had instructed, allowing him to shield me until we managed to find cover. My ankle was practically screaming at me to rest, but my limp was less substantial than I'd been expecting, particularly after my confinement. I managed to let off a few shots in the direction of the snipers, but mostly held my fire. I was best at a shorter range.

Smoke from the guns and the grenades billowed around us, making it hard to see and harder to aim, but it was also impeding the enemies who had sprung up from, it seemed, every single direction. I noticed a few familiar faces through the gloom, but realized that I wasn't too bothered about firing off a few shots in their general direction. I knew where my loyalties lay, for good or ill.

Together, we moved to a brick-lined alcove, big enough for the six of us to be concealed within. "How many?" Rick asked.

"I didn't see," Oscar shouted.

"Don't matter," Daryl growled, reloading his gun. "There's gonna be more of them. We need to move."

"Any grenades left?" Rick crouched next to Maggie and Daryl, trying to peer into the battered duffel I now recognized as the gun bag we'd retrieved from Atlanta, a thousand years ago. "Get 'em ready. We gotta gun into the wall."

Maggie whipped a few shots around the corner. "You guys go ahead," Daryl said, handing Glenn another long-gun as the whistle of three or four ricochets echoed around us . "I'm gonna lay down some cover fire."

"No," Maggie snapped, "we've got to stay together."

"It's too hairy. I'll be right behind you." He handed me a rifle, and I shoved the nearly empty .45 back into the duffel, keeping the Glock in the back of my jeans. "Go with Maggie," he instructed idly, as the group around us prepared to move.

I shook my head. "No. I can help you, show me where to go."

"Fuck, girl, go with her!"

"Look," I said firmly, grasping his jaw to force him to look at me. "I messed up my ankle again. If it gives out while I'm out there, I'll be a hindrance. I'm safer staying put, moving slower." Invocation of our history caused something to shift in his eyes; he nodded.

We scuttled through the smoky haze, set ourselves up against some park benches, a good positioning for aiming directly at the line of buses which marked the perimeter of the town's limits. If we could take out the snipers ranged nearby, Rick and the others could have a chance of escaping through or over the buses.

Daryl and I sprayed a volley of artillery over the back of the bench we squatted behind. I needed a breather; my arm was cramping, so I ducked further down to check on their progress. Rick was sprinting towards one of the buses; Maggie, Glenn, and Oscar were nowhere to be seen. I hoped that was a good sign. Another heartbeat passed and I stretched up again to join Daryl.

The stimuli was overwhelming: gunfire screeched through my ears; discordant shouts and screams reverberated off of each building, creating a veritable cacophony of noise. The smoke had thinned significantly, and the frequent flashes from the countless firearms illuminated the night. My head began to ache, and my ankle was throbbing. But I was alive. I was alive, and I was with Daryl. Two hours ago, I never could have hoped for something like this.

"Riley! Daryl! Come on, let's go!" Rick's voice cut through the expanse of chaos. Across the street, I watched a few guards skitter off into the alleys; I suspected they were off to report to the Governor, who, curiously, I hadn't spotted out on the street. It shouldn't really surprise me, I thought, as Daryl tapped me on the shoulder to point further down the street — the Governor was a leader of smoke and mirrors, after all. He'd only been prepared to craft the illusion of strength and influence. When it came down to it, when the shit hit the fan, he'd cower under his kitchen table same as any other scared Woodburian.

Rick had disappeared somewhere near the buses, but that was to be expected. Daryl wove through a much thinner assault, checking back once or twice to make sure I was still behind him. He fired off a few rounds, as did I, aiming at the general direction of the group we'd been combating, situated near Rita's café. We had another couple of paces to go, just a few more yards, so fucking close…when a pair of arms reached around and knocked the gun from my grasp and the breath from my lungs.

A cold kiss of metal pressed against my neck. "One wrong move, bud, and your girl here gets it."

* * *

When the _Vatos_ had bound my hands and blinded me with a pillowcase, I'd been pissed and ornery, anxious to be released but more irritated at my captive state than anything else. Then, too, I'd been quickly released, kept safe and relatively well-cared for by people who just wanted security and reassurance, just as much as our group did.

That was then; this was now.

This rope was tight, bringing my arms too far back, and I imagined muscles shredding with the effort. I couldn't see a damn thing, but I didn't really want to either. I had failed, hadn't I? If I'd been just a little bit faster, more aware or more capable, I would've heard the man coming up behind me, would've fired off a shot. Instead, he'd gotten hold of me, put his gun to my neck, and Daryl had had no choice but to drop his weapons and allow himself to be captured.

My best guess was that it had been about ten or fifteen minutes since we'd been taken. Since we'd left our weapons in the street and been dragged off down some alleyway. Since I'd apologized, broken streams of regret tumbling from my mouth, falling on deaf ears. Daryl wasn't acknowledging me, didn't offer me any words of encouragement or reassurance; he was completely silent as he was pushed and prodded along behind me, his hands bound just as tight.

Initially, I wasn't sure why they had chosen to take us prisoner. Minutes before, after all, we'd been shooting the shit out of each other across the main street. But as we were bundled into some dark doorway, as our bonds were tightened and our heads concealed beneath suspiciously-stained pillowcases, awareness began to dawn on my beleaguered mind: he was going to make examples of us. The traitor and the terrorist.

What had Andrea been saying about fighting pits?

"You know, I…I should tell you that we'll be okay, that we're safe, that tomorrow we'll bury our dead and endure, but I-I won't, because I can't." The Governor's voice rang through an open space I couldn't see, just ahead. I was flanked on both sides; I wanted to speak out, to ascertain where Daryl was, but I didn't dare. I just listened. "I'm afraid," he continued. "That's right. I'm afraid of terrorists who want what we have. Want to destroy us! And worse…because one of those terrorists…is one of our own. Merle." The crowd muttered and exclaimed at the revelation, while I tried to puzzle it out. Merle hadn't been part of Rick's rescue bid, had he? Glenn and Maggie had told us Merle was responsible for their injuries.

The Governor was evidently intending to use Merle as a scapegoat, to divert attention from their own defensive weaknesses and fallacies by levelling it all down to an inside job. No one could thus accuse the Governor of being guilty of anything except trusting a loyal friend.

What an asshole.

And he was _still_ talking.

"The man I counted on, the man I trusted. He led them here. And he let 'em in." The crowd was audibly horrified, gasping and roaring with confusion and outrage. "You lied, betrayed us all."

A new voice spoke, low and gravelly, close to my left ear. "Move 'em now." The two men on either side of me walked forwards as one unit, fairly dragging me along between them. One whipped the pillowcase from my head too early, and as we approached, I looked up to see what amounted to a good two-thirds of Woodbury's population, ranged alongside what must indeed be the fighting pits Andrea had told me about. In the centre, lit by flames and incandescent self-righteousness, stood the Governor: dusty, bloodied, and with his right eye bandaged.

"These are two of the terrorists," the Governor boomed, and my arms were released far too forcibly. I teetered and crashed to the ground. "Merle's own brother." The Governor grabbed Daryl by the arm and removed his hood. I watched as Daryl's face ran a whole gamut of expressions: anger, impudence, grief, apology, and that strange, boyish vulnerability that made my heart clench. He locked eyes first with Andrea, who was positively gawping with surprise; and then with his brother, whose face I couldn't read.

"And this — " the Governor gripped me by the ponytail, pulled me back to my feet — "this is the whore who played their go-between." The crowd screamed with recognition. "So what should we do with them, huh?"

What had the Colosseum sounded like, when the masses bayed for blood? What had the gladiators and the slaves felt, when they heard an empire demand their deaths? "Kill them!" came the cries of Woodbury. "Kill them!"

"What?" asked the Governor. "What do you want?"

Again and again rose the cries. Fists stretched up into the sky; eyes full of fury watched my every move, as I inched closer to Daryl, as he looked at me helplessly. _Was this my fault?_ I wanted to ask. "I'm sorry," I sobbed. "Daryl, I'm sorry."

"You wanted your brother," the Governor drawled, stepping closer to Merle. "Now you got him."

* * *

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	16. The Suicide King

_**Chapter XVI: The Suicide King**_

Daryl's jaw was trembling; his face was tucked low. Around him, a hundred people were calling for his body to be broken, his blood to be spilled, and there was nothing he could do. There was nothing I could do.

Surprisingly, though I was weeping silently, sobbing out apologies infrequently, I I couldn't feel that coil of panic flexing in my chest. That actually frightened me more. I should be raging, ranting, raving — I was about to die, and I was about to die with my hands tied behind my back. But perhaps because of Daryl's visible vulnerability, I felt an eerie calm drape over me, and the tears stopped.

It wasn't some cheesy shit about " _needing to be strong for him_ ," no, nothing like that. It was just the simple fact that someone I cared about was afraid: someone I looked up to, someone I wanted to impress. I straightened my back now, and I looked a woman in the crowd dead in the eye. If you're going to scream for my death, I thought, you're going to face me while they do it.

She lowered her fist and sat back down, silent and chastened. But she was one of too many, not even including the stoic guard members standing behind us, armed to the teeth and ready for any bolt towards escape.

"Phillip!" I turned, watched Andrea struggle in the grip of one of the guards who was desperately trying to hold her back.

"Stay out of this," the Governor replied, not even looking back at her.

"They're my friends," she protested. "Riley's just a kid!"

The Governor shook his head, feigning something close to sadness. "It's not up to me anymore. The people have spoken."

Andrea's eyes searched wildly, but there was no logic to be found. "What?"

The guards standing behind us released our bonds, and my shoulders ached with their new freedom. Daryl didn't move, didn't run; there was no point. Despite my best intentions to appear as strong as possible in front of these fools, I found myself reaching for Daryl, leaning into him. Much to my surprise, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and drew me in close, pressed me against his chest so that I couldn't see anything, so that I could close my eyes and escape the horror.

"I asked you," the Governor continued, and I knew, even without looking, that he was pointing at Merle, "where your loyalties lie. You said here. Well, prove it. Prove it to us all." I peeked over my shoulder: the elder Dixon puffed out his chest, jutted his chin into the air. "Brother against brother. Winner goes free. We'll decide what to do with the girl later. Maybe the winner will get her. But you fight to the death." The crowd roared with approval.

"Phillip, please, don't do this," Andrea pleaded. "Don't do this."

Cheers began to bubble up for Merle, here and there a dose of encouragement. They loved him, didn't want to be betrayed by him. To them, Daryl and I were the corruptors, the evil in their midst. "Y'all know me," Merle drawled, addressing the crowd. I shifted slightly in Daryl's arms and he loosened his grasp. "I'm gonna do whatever I got to do to prove" — and here he whirled around, rammed his remaining fist deep into Daryl's stomach, and we hit the ground together — "that my loyalty is to this town!" He kicked Daryl; I rolled in the opposite direction, scrabbled to my feet.

Merle landed four more blows, whaling on Daryl relentlessly. I came up from behind, gripped Merle's thick neck with one hand and drove my right knee upwards into his groin. "Shit!" he hollered, and smacked me across the face. "You little bitch." I toppled backwards, my ankle finally giving out. I watched Merle descend upon Daryl, who was back on the ground. He reached down, a meaty fist around his brother's throat.

"Get off him!" I screamed, pushing myself towards them with little to no movement possible in my feet. "Get the fuck off him!" I scraped my nails down his bare upper arms, and he shrieked and cursed at me, knocked me away. Daryl had both hands around his neck, but Merle had the advantage: one good blow from his metal prosthesis and Daryl would be out cold or worse, left to the mercy of the walkers that the Woodbury guards were now drawing out, held at a distance with long, netted sticks.

I launched myself back onto Merle, started hitting him, slapping him, kicking him — anything I could do to get him away from Daryl. "You really think this asshole's gonna let you go?" Daryl grunted suddenly, and the sound of his voice was enough to make me pause.

"Just follow my lead, little brother. We're getting out of this right now. Your girl, too." He shoved me back, lifted Daryl up with him, and then Merle reached down to grip me under the armpits. "Just hold on to me, darlin'." He shoved me in between them, they stood back to back, shielding me from the walkers the guards were pressing in closer. These ones, despite what Andrea and Michonne had both told me, had teeth.

Merle pushed one back with the force of his metal forearm, kicked out at another. Somewhere in the distance, Andrea was still begging the Governor to stop, as though he could. This town had taken on something different, removed the mask and let go of all inhibitions. They were monsters and they didn't care who knew it. Not even the Governor could slow them now.

Daryl hit one walker back into the crowd, punched out at another. I tried to take a step towards a third, but agony shot deep and straight up my left leg and I fell to the ground, swearing the whole way down. I was useless. Completely useless. I could only watch as Daryl lunged towards one more walker, screech as one of the guards pushed a particular tall one towards Daryl's back — and then watch as both the walker and the guard crumpled to the ground in a spray of bullets.

The crowd screamed as they realized the attack wasn't over yet, but it took my brain far too long to catch up to the moment. Who was shooting, I wondered, watching more walkers fall? The people of Woodbury began to disperse in panic as even more guards were gunned down. Some, in their deaths, releasing their grips upon the walkers' leads, thus allowing them to roam free.

A smoke grenade burst in the centre of the arena, and I couldn't help but conceal a smile. Rick hadn't left us after all. "Come on, little brother," Merle shouted, beating a walker's head to a pulp with his metal arm. "Stay close!" The smoke was curling inwards, cutting off any sense of spatial awareness I had once possessed. Moans and rasps of the freed walkers issued here and there through the gloom, but it was impossible to ascertain their precise location until they were nearly on top of you. One emerged scarily close to my left arm, which Merle batted away. He reached down, pulled me up. "Let's go, baby girl."

"Merle, come on," Daryl's voice filtered through, somewhere on Merle's left side. "You got her?"

We ran, towards the dumpster where the bluish gleam of Rick's flashlight was bouncing. Shumpert, one of Merle's former lackeys, had his back to us, releasing bolts from his crossbow into the skulls of a few walkers. As we passed him, Daryl simply reached over, grabbed the weapon from his hands, and Merle punched him down to the ground.

By this point, we were blending in with the mass of fleeing citizens, who couldn't be bothered to look too closely at the man with the crossbow or the one dragging along a limping, wincing girl. As we curved around the side of the dumpster, Maggie reached for my other arm, slinging it more firmly around her neck so that I was suspended between her and Merle, allowing my bad foot to just kind of glide over the ground. The relief was instant.

We kept running, kept going, until the crowd finally dispersed and we were left facing the outer edge of Woodbury's borders. If we could climb onto the roof of one of the buses, we could ease our way over the top of the walls, I guessed. "They're all at the arena," Merle said, gazing wildly around for potential exits. "This way." He pointed straight ahead to the wall.

"You're not going anywhere with us," Rick snapped.

Merle gently released his grip, and I shifted my weight to my good foot, let go of Maggie's shoulder, too. "You really want to do this now?" he asked Rick.

There was no reply.

Rick, Daryl, and Maggie stood guard, their backs to the wall as Merle and I wordlessly struggled to exploit one of the spots in the wall where two sheets of steel met. "Come on, man," Daryl muttered.

When he finally broke through, Merle pushed out into the main road first, taking down one of the dozen or so walkers who were beginning to move towards the town's borders, likely drawn by the gunfire. "A little help would be nice," he hollered, delivering a final blow to one already on the ground.

As the others emerged from the wall, they too fired off a few rounds, but all I could do was just stand there. The Governor's guards had taken my gun when I was captured. It was just as well, though, because we had to move. "We ain't got time for this," Merle said, gesturing down towards the open road. It wouldn't take the Governor and his remaining men long to figure out where we had escaped; they would be on our asses before we knew it. Maggie was by my side in another instant, drawing up one of my arms to wrap around her shoulder again, and then Daryl was at my other side, doing the same.

The trek through the deep, dark forest took a good hour or so; we were forced to stop several times to dispatch a few walkers, and at one point, Rick decided that we could move much faster if I was on his back. Daryl helped me to hook my legs around his waist and lock my wrists carefully around his neck. "If there's trouble, you roll off and away," Rick instructed, not without a bit of gentleness.

We made it to the main highway just as the sun was beginning to truly break over the horizon. The pinkness that we had only barely able to see had been scrubbed from the sky, leaving a slight buttery gleam to the morning that reminded me, painfully, of the farm.

The trees began to thin, and we could see the road beyond. "Glenn," Rick whispered, as loudly as he dared. I shuffled from his back and he slid me to the forest floor. "Glenn!"

For his part, Glenn was initially so relieved to see us all there and safe that it took him nearly a full minute to realize that Merle had accompanied us. Rick took advantage of the delay to sort of _ease_ him into the reality. "Now, we got a problem here, I need you to back up —"

"What the hell is he doing here?" Glenn demanded, as Michonne unsheathed her sword. _That_ certainly sprung everyone into action.

"Hey, hey, hey, put it down!" Daryl yelled, moving to stand defensively between Glenn and Merle, while Rick pulled his silver Python on Michonne.

"He tried to kill me!" she shrieked.

Glenn was practically shaking with rage. "If it wasn't for him — " he began, pointing to Merle. Daryl cut him off: "He helped us get out of there."

"Yeah, right after he beat the shit out of you," Rick interjected.

Merle just laughed, leaning back against a tall oak. "Hey, we both took our licks, man."

"Jackass," Daryl muttered in his brother's direction. Merle just responded by telling him to shut up.

"Enough!" Rick bellowed, in that authoritative, law-enforcement tone he was wont to adapt during escalating situations.

Still on the ground, about five feet or so back from the whole thing, I could only examine the situation. Michonne still gripped her katana; Maggie had Daryl and Merle in her line of fire from where she stood behind Glenn; and Daryl had his hands outstretched, an entreaty for understanding. Rick, for his part, had his back to Merle, his gun cocked and outstretched, daring Michonne to make a move before we had a chance to settle this civilly.

Though it hurt, I struggled to my feet; I had to be an official part of this. Though Merle was undeniably a piece of shit, he deserved a fair hearing. Back at the farm, we'd considered the fate of Randall, a potential threat to our safety, with much more weight and ceremony than Michonne or Glenn wanted to enact now. I wouldn't be a part of a phantom trial again: wouldn't be judge, jury, and executioner right here in the woods, after five minutes of arguing. Breathing heavily with the backlog of pain I'd done my best to ignore throughout our escape, I leaned against a tree a little ways back from Merle.

"Get that thing out of my face!" Glenn and Maggie both had their guns trained on Merle, but unfortunately, that sightline included Daryl, who was furious at their stance.

The elder Dixon just chuckled. "Man, looks like you've gone native, brother."

"No more than you hanging out with that psycho back there," Daryl rounded on his brother.

"Oh, yeah, man, he is a charmer, I got to tell you that," Merle drawled. His eyes slid to meet Michonne's. "Been putting the wood to your girlfriend Andrea — big time, baby." His tongue lolled licentiously.

"What?" Glenn searched her face and mine. "Andrea's in Woodbury?"

"Right next to the Governor," Daryl replied gravely. In his words he held all the regret Michonne and I shared: her eyes met mine and I found myself spinning through memory, falling endlessly back into the depths of the winter we three had shared together. A trio of disparate, disjointed people: a mystery and a virago and a little girl. Together, we had become new women for a new world, hoping for home and peace. Instead, we found ourselves divided along the fault lines of who we had been, rather than who we had grown to be. Yes, in his words, Daryl held the true grief of this moment — our moment.

I looked away, looked down at the leafy ground, and in that split second, Michonne made a play for Merle's throat, raising her sword and dashing forward, and it never even occurred to me to be a part of the effort to hold her back, though Rick and Daryl did a good job. "I told you to drop that," Rick fairly snarled, lunging toward her. "You know Andrea?" Michonne was silent, her face watching mine. Rick must understand that Michonne had known me, based on the way she'd greeted me in the apartment. But until the moment in the arena, perhaps, he hadn't dared hope that he also knew the second woman she was there to rescue.

"Yup, she does!" Merle crowed. Rick's eyes never left Michonne's face. "Her and blondie and baby girl here spent all winter cuddling up in the forest. Mm-mmm-mmm, yeah." Rick turned slowly as Merle continued. "My Nubian queen here had two pet walkers. No arms, cut off the jaws, kept them in chains. Kind of ironic, now that I think about it — "

"Shut up, bro." Daryl glared at him.

But, as usual, Merle kept talking. "Hey, man, we snagged them out of the woods. Andrea was close to dying."

"Is that why she's with him?" Maggie asked.

"Snug as two little bugs." Merle nodded, then turned to Rick. "So what you gonna do now, Sheriff, huh? Surrounded by a bunch of liars, thugs, and cowards."

"Shut up!" Rick snapped.

"Oh, man, look at this. Pathetic. All these guns and no bullets in them."

Daryl took a step towards his brother, a look of warning clear on his face. "Merle, shut up!"

"Shut up yourself! Bunch of pussies you roll — " Thankfully, Merle didn't get to finish. The butt of Rick's Colt smacked down the base of his skull as he pushed off the tree and rounded on the group, instantaneously knocking him unconscious. I stifled a chuckle as he hit the ground.

"Asshole," Rick muttered, looking down at him with disgust. "Come on; we'll talk out there."

We left Merle prostrate on the forest floor, well within our eye-line, but this was not a conversation to be had over his unknowing form. Michonne helped me pick my way through the leafy undergrowth, her arm comfortingly around my shoulders. "So that's Daryl, huh?" she said lowly, with a small smile creasing her face. As though this was the moment for teasing. "Not exactly what I expected."

"Shut up," I hissed, hoping he hadn't heard. Up ahead, he stepped over the lip of the highway and onto the asphalt, not looking back once to see if we were okay. That could mean a multitude of things, for Daryl. In the months we'd been apart, I guess I'd forgotten how to read his many strange, conflicting, subtle, and frustratingly inscrutable signals.

"It won't work," Rick was saying, as Michonne and I finally caught up. She let me go on further, staying back to lean against the SUV that had somehow survived the highway and the farm.

"It's got to," Daryl countered.

Rick just shook his head, bit his lip with visible resignation. "It'll stir things up."

I didn't know what were heading back to — didn't know what kind of community they'd developed back at the prison they now called home. Rick and Maggie had filled me in on the trip through the woods, giving me the tally of the dead: Shane, Lori, T-Dog, Jimmy and Patricia from the farm. They gave me the surprise of a new life — Rick and Lori's baby daughter, Judith.

Where could Merle fit into all of this? Where could I, for that matter? Not quite two weeks within Woodbury's walls had almost driven me insane — what would living in a prison cell do to me? I worried that I had been out there so long that I was incapable of existing in an established, orderly community. When we'd finally hit the cover of the forest, I'd taken a deep, fulsome breath for the first time in too many days. And here now, on the road, I saw only the promise of our freedom, the promise of isolation and independence.

But I loved them, my people — Rick, Daryl, Maggie, Glenn, Carol, Carl and this new little baby that I hadn't even met. All through those winter months, in every moment in Woodbury, even in the closet, I'd dwelled in my memories of them; fawned over my imagined future with them. They were my family, the closest thing I could manage to that in this world, and I wanted to be with them — which, I suppose, was all that Daryl wanted, with Merle. Could I really begrudge him that?

Solidarity, if that could be considered such an emotion, rushed through my veins and I found myself stumbling over to stand next to Daryl. No matter what would come, I would fight his corner. Because a day would inevitably would arrive when I need him in mine. He looked down at me, reached out a hand to steady me, and I smiled at him, just a faint, secret one. Just for us.

"Look," he continued, turning back to Rick, "the Governor is probably on his way to the prison right now. Merle knows how he thinks and we could use the muscle."

"I'm not having him at the prison," Maggie said gently.

"Do you really want him sleeping in the same cell block as Carol or Beth or-or Riley?" Glenn asked.

Daryl shifted where he stood. "He ain't a rapist."

"Well, his buddy is." I looked at Glenn, quizzically; and then Maggie, who turned her eyes away. Realization and horror dawned on me in equal measure. Just what had gone on in the hours before they'd been rescued?

"They ain't buddies no more, not after last night," Daryl argued.

Rick just shook his head. "There's no way Merle's going to live there without putting everyone at each other's throats."

"So you're gonna cut Merle loose and bring the last samurai home with us?" Daryl scoffed; I hit him lightly on the arm — Michonne was my Merle, in this case only. I wouldn't stand for insults or insinuations.

"She's not coming back," Rick said.

"Then I'm not either." The four of them turned to look at me, incredulity evident on each of their faces. "She kept me alive all winter; she came back for me. She needs to stay." Tears began to crowd my throat at the prospect. "She needs a place."

Maggie squeezed my arm. "She's not in a fit state to be on her own," she pointed out. Glenn sighed, and then conceded that Michonne _had_ been integral to their rescue. "At least let my dad stitch her up," Maggie continued.

But Rick was, as usual, resolute. "I'm sorry, Riley, but she's too unpredictable."

"That's right," Daryl said, avoiding my eye. "We don't know who she is." I glanced over at Michonne; she was leaning against the SUV; the look on her face plainly said she knew exactly what we were talking about. "But Merle, Merle's blood."

"No," Glenn cut him off. "Merle is your blood. My blood, my family is standing right here and waiting for us back at the prison.

Rick continued: "And you're part of that family. But he's not. He's not."

I looked over my shoulder at the sound of something stirring in the woods behind us. Merle had come to; leaning against a tree with one hand rubbing the back of his neck. I looked back at Daryl, and had very little control about the next words I contributed: "If Daryl's our family, and he is…then Merle has to have the chance to prove himself, either way. Same with Michonne. We were all strangers once, Rick."

He weighed my words, but his stony silence told us everything. Pretty speeches wouldn't work here, and really, I couldn't blame him. Objectively, yes, Michonne and Merle were terrifying; the love that Daryl and I bore for them did little to assuage that for the rest of the group, but for us, it made this a Gordian knot of a decision.

"Fine," Daryl said, heavily. "We'll fend for ourselves."

Glenn was insistent, regretful. "That's not what I was saying." His face twisted with consternation, but Daryl just looked back at his brother. "No him, no me," he said.

Maggie began saying something about this being unnecessary: her voice was kind and she meant well, but this conversation was too far gone. We had strayed irretrievably into something dangerous, something insidious. Daryl just shook his head at her protests. "It was always Merle and I before this."

"You serious?" Glenn asked. "You're just going to leave like that?"

"You'd do the same thing." And Daryl was right — if this were Maggie we were talking about, or Beth, or Hershel, Glenn would be of precisely the same mind. So why couldn't he understand? I understood. I understood perfectly, which is how I realized, I had already made my decision.

"What do you want us to tell Carol?" Glenn continued.

Daryl hesitated slightly before responding. "She'll understand." He stared at Rick, for a long time, then looked down at me. Did he know what I was about to do? Or did he think me just as insensitive as the rest of them? "Say goodbye to your pop for me," he said finally, nodding to Maggie. And then he started to walk — away from them, towards Merle. We all followed: Glenn and Maggie's protests fell on deaf ears, but Rick sped up, evidently not finished.

"There's got to be another way." I wondered then about the dynamics of the group, how they'd developed over the course of these past months. Glenn had mentioned Carol specifically — perhaps something had grown between her and Daryl. Back at the farm, he had seemed so much like an outlier, someone on the fringes of the group's functioning, someone who couldn't exactly fit into the roles laid out for everyone. But now, I gathered, things had changed. Rick looked downright distraught at the prospect of losing him to Merle and the woods, whereas this time last year, he would've been merely displeased, I figured.

Daryl stopped at his words, looked him up and down. "Don't ask me to leave him. I already did that once."

"We started something last night," Rick said insistently, and they both started walking again. Neither had realized, I think, that I was limping along behind them. "You realize that?"

Daryl lifted the trunk of the SUV. "No him, no me. That's all I can say." He began rummaging through the back, selecting a few knives and supplies and shoving them into a backpack. "Take care of yourself. Take care of li'l Ass-Kicker. Carl. He's one tough kid." His eyes flicked over to mine. "You take care, too, girl."

My hand shot out, wrapped around his wrist. "I'm coming with you." It was verbal vomit, spilling out of my mouth with very little inhibition or control. I'd made the decision a few moments before, but still, a part of my brain had hoped that I wouldn't need to do that, that Rick would relent. I knew — so thoroughly, so deeply — that I wouldn't be parted from him again.

I wasn't sure what I felt for Daryl: a long time ago, I'd thought it was love, or something like the beginning of it. Maybe it was just a stupid crush. And mingled now with those brimming feelings, there was a fear stewing deep inside. I could not live within walls. I couldn't. Not anymore — they frightened me, that false sense of security, the notion that some brick and mortar could seal out the inevitable cruelty of our new world. With Daryl and Merle, I would have a chance to reclaim myself, and I would not be alone.

Daryl froze, looked back at me. He could reject me, very easily. He could tell me he didn't want me, didn't want the burden of my bad ankle, didn't need another mouth to feed. He could tell me that I hadn't spoken up when it mattered, that I'd fucked up their plan for Woodbury and I'd screw up something else, too.

But he didn't. "You sure?" he asked, low with hope. I nodded. "Get a knife then, from the trunk." He smiled, faint and secret, just for us.

Michonne was in my ear the second I leaned into the trunk, buzzing about how reckless and stupid I was being, how I should wait, come back with them, then we'd make a plan together. "You cried in that apartment," she seethed, "you flipped out, telling me how much you wanted to see _them all_ again. And now you're going to throw away walls and medical care and your goddamn family for one guy? Are you crazy, Riley?"

I found a good-sized hunting knife, already sheathed, and shoved into the front pocket of my jeans. "Maybe." Her face fell. So did Rick's. "But I just…I can't do that again. I can't let somebody make choices like that for me. I don't even…I don't even know what I'm saying. I'm sorry, Rick. Mich."

They all called after us as we walked further into the woods, as Merle slung an arm around Daryl's shoulders, as I tested the weight on my ankle and realized it actually wasn't as bad as it had been. They called after us as the brush enclosed our path, as we moved too far away to hear them, as the precise notes of their regret and their frustration faded away into birdsong and the crunch of pine needles beneath our feet.


	17. Home

_**Chapter XVII: Home**_

We walked for the entire day, mostly in silence, save for the occasional jibe or lecherous remark courtesy of Merle. My ankle was burning, but it didn't feel as weak as it had over the past couple of days, so my limp wasn't as substantial. I still had to move slower than I would like, so that it didn't take long for me to fall slightly behind.

Daryl paused on the path ahead, after about seven hours of walking. I apologized when I finally caught up. He just shrugged. "You can't help it."

As we continued on quietly together, I wondered what it must be like for him, to be able to read the very ground we walked on; understand so many truths from minuscule sources. He probably knew what had tread on this path a few hours before us; could interpret the growth of moss, the way the sun filtered down to us, the sound of the wind through the trees. It was almost magical to me, his tracking. Over the winter, I'd learned a little, putting together some bits and pieces of what he'd taught me, but largely just eking out knowledge from necessity. Nothing compared to what he could do.

And what a beautiful place to understand so intimately, I thought: the verdant growth around us; the branches drooping with young leaves; the secret snuffles and hums of animals smart enough to avoid us. It must be like knowing another language, I thought. Being able to understand something that locks so many others out.

"You haven't asked me why I came with you," I ventured, awkwardly sidestepping a rather thick root. Daryl steadied me, looked ahead to Merle still stomping away beyond us. He shrugged again, and silence fell once more. It didn't bother me — much like with Michonne, Daryl and I tended to work well in silence. Though in many of our previous encounters, I'd endeavoured to fill those empty spaces with nervous chatter, I was determined that these moments be different. Because we were different, and I wanted him to see that, too.

He must have preferred the silence, too, and just fished in his vest pocket for a cigarette. He cupped his fingers around the flame of his lighter, took a few drags, and then handed it over. "Figured…if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me. You got a habit of doing that."

I took a deep breath: my first cigarette in several days. I imagined the nicotine flowing like silver syrup through my veins, sweet and wrong on multiple levels. I sighed and closed my eyes with the pleasure of it; I heard Merle's laugh from up ahead. "Shit, girl, you feel like that after he gives you a smoke, how do you feel when he gives you —"

"Shut up, Merle!"

Blushing, I handed the cigarette back to Daryl. "We gonna stop soon?" I asked, looking around. We'd reached a fairly tight natural clearing: good visibility for several yards in each direction, and a small brook was trickling just to my right. The sky was beginning to dim, just slightly, fading into the bruised light of dusk. It would make sense to set up camp while we still had some light, and then see what we could do about getting something to eat. We'd filled up three water bottles at a creek early on in the day, but hunger was beginning to gnaw at my stomach. Daryl had had his crossbow poised and at the ready for most of the day (mainly for walkers) but no critters had crossed our path. Yet.

"Probably should." Daryl examined the area, tallying the same items of appeal that I had observed. "Hey, bro, stop here?"

Merle agreed, and the brothers set to work. Within a good hour and a half, we had a fire, two squirrels sizzling on a fairly flat rock near the flames, fresh water in our bottles, and a watch rota scheduled for the night. I took the opportunity to wash some of the blood from my face and hands, check on the status of my bruises and cuts from the Governor's beating. Everything seemed to be healing nicely; there was little swelling and the bruises were right on track, colour-wise.

The sun set as we divvied up the meat, Daryl handing me a few carefully sliced pieces, Merle laughing as I closed my eyes to eat them. "You've eaten it raw before, girl," Daryl muttered, and I remembered the day in the ravine, when we'd stained our lips red and I'd cussed him out for feeding me bloody meat.

Daryl took first watch; Merle snored away behind us, but I couldn't sleep. I was too alive with the risks we were taking; the absurdity of the knowledge that I'd walked away from a secure, concrete prison to gambol through the woods with the Dixon brothers. It tingled in my nerves; I buzzed with the foolishness of my choice. And I chattered away.

I told Daryl about my winter; he told me about his. They had spent their months foraging, scavenging, sleeping in cars, raiding homes. Such a large group to keep alive, I thought. I told him about the helicopter crash, about Merle finding us in the brush; about the apartment, about Andrea, about the hope I'd had for tracking them down. He asked me about my ankle, and I told him it had never quite been the same since that fall in the ravine, since the week after, when I'd pushed it too much. But it didn't matter, I reassured him. It healed quickly, and the limp wasn't as bad as it could've been.

Rising up between us, curling away into the dark like the smoke from the four cigarettes we shared, passing between us — rising between us was something akin to an old camaraderie. It warmed me more than the fire, brought some life back to my bones. My friendship with Michonne had done much the same to me, over those frigid months together. Neither was as it had been with Chloe, or even RJ. Those were my ancient ghosts, too far back to have much bearing on the new world. I left them buried. But here now, with Daryl, I felt something bright beginning: we were moving back to what we'd been on the cusp of last year, I could just feel it. Friendship, kinship, something more — I didn't really give a damn at this point. Just being with someone that I had chosen, someone who, in a way had chosen me too, that was all I could hope for in a world like this.

"I think I'm scared of the walls," I whispered, as he tossed another few sticks on the fire. The flames gobbled them up within seconds, sending a flurry of sparks into the air. He just looked at me, an unasked question heavy in his tired eyes. "The walls at Woodbury…they were keeping the world out, and those people…they forgot. They forgot how to be vigilant; forgot they were at risk." I kissed the cigarette, drew in the smoke deeply. "I don't want to be like that. Being like that gets you killed, in the end."

He cleared his throat. "That why you didn't want to go to the prison?"

I glanced upwards; the planes of his face were illuminated only here and there, lending him a new visage. A different man sat across from me, and perhaps that made my next words easier, as though I wasn't really confessing this to Daryl Dixon, but to some stranger who would disregard the intimacy of my words and move on with his life totally independent of mine. "Part of it. And I-I wanted to go with you. Because…I, well, during the winter, and I mean —"

A hand clapped onto his shoulder, scaring the shit out of both of us. "You been up, too, sweetheart?" Merle asked. "Christ, I didn't interrupt anything, did I?" He grinned at me, baring his teeth and his debauched insinuations. Daryl just shoved his hand away, avoided my gaze, and, without another sound, rolled over with his back to the orange glow of the fire, and the deep pink of my cheeks.

* * *

I took last watch, Merle shaking me awake after a few hours. Sleepily, I leaned back against a tree and tumbled my knife from one hand to the other, trying to avoid the empty stare of the squirrel skulls that Daryl had, essentially, licked clean the evening before, and then ranged grotesquely near the fire.

It was a peaceful morning, as it came to be. Just twenty-four hours before, I'd been standing by the side of the highway with Rick, Glenn, Maggie, and Michonne, facing the prospect of a battle with the Governor — but heading home, as they called it. They'd intended for it to be my home, too. And I'd walked away from it all. Followed Daryl into the woods, thrown it all away for one guy, just like Michonne had said. I'd turned my back on her, slammed closed the gates myself this time.

I shivered; Merle had stomped out the fire soon after taking watch. Logically, we shouldn't have had one at all: between the Governor and walkers, we had plenty of risk travelling the forest with us. A fire was a dangerous luxury we should not have indulged in, but I was grateful for the cooked meat, rather than having to eviscerate the broken carcass for my dinner. And the warmth, the warmth had been nice. My closet had been warm too, but stiflingly so — close and cloying. This was a purer heat, the type to ease cold bones, not scald or burn or smother.

Should I wake them, I wondered? The sky was beginning to blush, and around us, the world was stirring. Merle hadn't given me any firm instructions, but personally, I decided that getting an early start — especially when travelling to nowhere — was preferable. Maybe, if we were lucky today, we'd encounter some kind of house or structure. Tall, impenetrable walls scared me, yes, but some plaster and wood frame would be enjoyable for a night. I had a kink somewhere deep in my back from leaning against the tree. I tried to reach my hand around, grappling for the knot, aiming to massage it out before the Dixons woke and wanted to get moving.

That's when I heard it.

Low at first, a tentative rasp that didn't, initially, seem out of place. After all, I'd spent over half a year falling asleep to the grating moans of Michonne's pets. It was the proximity, however, that made my stomach clench with fear. I stood, scanning the periphery of our little camp. Branches snapped and dead feet stumbled, but the stillness of the morning and my sleepy brain made it difficult to ascertain where exactly the sound was originating. Neither Daryl nor Merle stirred.

I crouched, leaning lightly on the balls of my feet, ready to pounce when necessary. The knife was a little slick in my hand, but I wasn't too nervous. As long as it was just one — and it certainly sounded like that — I could manage just fine solo. When more than one walker was around, their moans and gasps seemed to coalesce into an overpowering hum, but still with those distinctly discordant notes unique to each of them. I wasn't keen enough to determine the precise number of a group, but I could always tell if I should be just looking out for one or multiple.

She finally emerged, breaking through the brush just about fifteen feet away from where I sat. Brilliant, I thought — this couldn't have worked out better. She was heading for a fairly sizeable divot cut into the ground, likely from a large stone being removed at some point. Walkers weren't coordinated at the best of times, let alone when they were excited about a feed, so I just let her enthusiastically stumble towards the divot, watched as she fell to her belly, and then simply strolled over to shove the knife deep into the base of her skull. She was gone, and the world was quiet again.

"Nicely done, baby." Merle was sitting upright, stretching away the sleep, smiling at me as Daryl struggled sleepily to his feet. He took in the sight: knife aloft, walker dead at my feet.

"You shoulda woke me up," he snapped, then turned around to piss against the tree I'd been leaning against not too long ago.

Crestfallen, I stared at his back for a beat too long. Merle clocked the look on my face and started to laugh. "Shit, girl, don't listen to him. You did a fine job. Daryl's just pissy 'cause he didn't get a chance to save his damsel in distress."

Daryl turned around with a snarled expletive, hurled firmly in Merle's direction. For the third time in too many days, I found myself flushing with embarrassment. Merle really did seem determined that there was something going on between Daryl and I that extended far beyond the awkward friendship we'd somehow begun to establish ourselves as involved in. As I took the chance to subtly sneak away to relieve myself in a copse of shrubs further away from camp, I found myself wondering what Merle would think if he knew that his brother and I had once shared a tent, back at the farm.

Our second day in the woods proved to be significantly hotter than the first, and there seemed to be no squirrels in sight. It concerned me that we had no supplies, but I didn't dare express it. Daryl seemed tense, and hadn't said a word to me since the morning. Merle nattered on at length, but for the most part we just ignored him, and that seemed to suit him just fine. He was enjoying having a captive audience; he didn't require participation.

We cut out of the forest around midmorning, skirting the highway for about an hour. Houses — abandoned, faded, likely already ransacked — lined the roadway. I itched to check them out, if only to accumulate a small cache of canned goods. Hunting was all very well and good — but only if we found anything. We had to sort out our priorities at some point, and the fact of the matter remained: as long as we kept moving, we limited Daryl's chances of stalking and bagging something. Canned goods, or even a roof over our heads for a few nights, that could significantly improve our chances of survival. When I pointed this out, Merle just scoffed, muttering something about me being a city girl, and "just because I lasted the whole winter didn't make me a goddamn expert."

And so back into the woods we went.

By noon we had stopped for a rest. I sat down on the ground, taking some weight and pressure off my ankle, while Merle — far less subtly than his brother — took a piss against a tree. Daryl kept watch, eyes intensely examining every inch of the thick woodland surrounding us. "There ain't nothing out here but mosquitos and ants," he observed, earning a sigh of exasperation (and hunger) from me.

"Patience, little brother," Merle drawled. "Sooner or later, a squirrel is bound to scurry across your path."

"Even so, that ain't much food." Something rustled behind Daryl; he turned, but had no reason to be concerned, I gathered, because he made no move.

"More than nothing," Merle replied, shrugging.

"I'd have better luck going through one of them houses we passed back on the turn-off." Daryl caught my eye, and I smiled in agreement, gingerly standing. A solid plan, even if it was one I'd already come up with and subsequently heard rejected. Perhaps Merle would be more receptive to it a few hours on, once hunger had had a chance to persuade him more thoroughly than I could.

"Is that what your new friends taught you? Hmm?" Merle turned. "How to loot for booty?" He zipped up his jeans and glared at Daryl.

"We've been at it for hours," Daryl argued, not harshly. "Why don't we find a stream, try to look for some fish?" Idly, he lifted his crossbow, aimed at nothing.

Merle huffed. "I think you're just trying to lead me back to the road, man." He was crouched, practically kneeling in the leaves, filtering a few through his hand as though they held the secret map to Rabbit City within them. "Get me over to that prison."

"They got shelter," Daryl countered, leaning back against a tree and catching my eye again. "Food. A pot to piss in. Might not be a bad idea."

"For you two, maybe." Merle looked up at him, his eyes heavy with something I couldn't understand. Regret, maybe? Resentment? "Ain't gonna be no damn party for me."

"Everyone will get used to each other."

Was that he wanted, I wanted to ask? That whole standoff on the highway, the one where I'd staked my claim and cut off my ties, just to be with him — had that just been him buying some time? If this were true, and the way he was awkwardly meeting my hot gaze convinced me that it likely was — then how did he expect things to change so drastically in just a day or two? Rick, Glenn, and Maggie had been firm, and I couldn't really blame them. I didn't know many of the details of what Merle had done to them, but one look at Glenn told me the beating had been… _elaborate_. Hatefully so — and then there was the accusation of Merle attempting to execute the two of them. That one in particular rattled around in my brain.

There was no doubt in my mind, even then, that Merle was bad news. But I was also young and impressionable, and half in love with Daryl Dixon. And because of that, I glossed over much of the evidence in front of me, settling on the solitary axle of Daryl's position: he loved his brother. And he deserved, I felt, the opportunity to teach him, to share a new kind of life with him. If he could guarantee the safety of others — perhaps having Merle locked in a cell for a period of time, or just at night? — his plan might work. Merle might some value in a settled existence, or in the way that Rick led us. Or he might simply just learn to live with it, for love of his brother.

I opened my mouth, ready to shape my theory, but Merle beat me to it. "They're all dead," he said, simply, still fiddling with the button on his pants. "Makes no difference."

The tremor started in my right hand — subtle, small, nearly imperceptible. Neither man noticed, not even when it began to travel further up my arm. The coil was back, tightening in my chest, threatening to unravel. "How can you be so sure?" Daryl asked, lowering his crossbow.

"Right about now he's probably hosting a housewarming party where he's gonna bury what's left of your pals." As though it were punctuation, Merle spat. "Let's hook some fish. Come on."

I watched Daryl's face as my body continued to tremble, growing in intensity by degrees: his jaw twitched, tightened; his eyes glazed over, and he twisted his lips to spit, just like his brother.

The truth of the matter was that Daryl would _always_ want to be just like his brother. He would turn away from thoughts of our people dying, because that was what Merle did. He would walk deep into the forest, turn reluctantly away from home and security, because that was what Merle did. He would always look to his brother for guidance and inspiration, and I was now a part of that. I hadn't followed Daryl into the woods; I'd followed Merle.

He walked away without looking back; it didn't surprise me, in one way. Any intimacy we'd begun to establish had been repeatedly and staunchly extinguished by Merle's ridiculing interjections. Had part of me believed that we'd walk hand-in-hand into the sunset, happily ever after?

Maybe.

The shaking was growing by this point; the tremors infiltrating my entire arms, the coil unfurling and flexing in my chest. My eyes grew bright and blurry with tears, and I felt hot — so wretchedly, cursedly _hot_. Sweat burst and trickled from my pores; stars winked at my peripheral vision. My entire body was too small, then too large, then too tight, then…

Dimly, through a haze of anxiety and nausea, I saw his face. Felt his hands on my shoulders. Heard his voice, though it came from far, far away. "Fuck," he was saying. "Fuck, girl, goddamn it — Riley, look at me, look at me!" But I _was_ looking at him, wasn't I? My eyes scanned the world: I saw green and blue and a faded, wistful brown. The air was sweet on my lips; the ground a soft bed beneath my aching bones. I curled into it, and thought about my mother. Her voice rose on the wind, and the whole mess of it spun around me. The whole grand mess of it all.

I blinked. Counted four trees. Two rocks near my foot. The unsteady tattoo of Daryl's shaky breaths.

It stopped.

Daryl was frightened, and the novelty of that expression composed so neatly upon his face almost made me laugh. I'd seen him scared before, but never frightened, and surviving the end of the world will swiftly teach you that yes, there is a difference between the two. "Scared" is a chin tucked into your chest, a hand reaching out for someone else; "scared" is a creeping in your stomach, a tightening in your muscles; "scared" is a desert of a mouth.

"Frightened" is a little deeper, a little more ghoulish. It starts in the pit of your stomach and the dark depths of your brain — it's an echo of memories that your ancestors forgot, swimming to the surface like so much flotsam. It's confronting the macabre, the terrifying, and the fearful. It's watching a girl writhe in sadness, in pain and grief and not knowing how to put a name to it. It's realizing that your hands — which can pluck life from high branches; solve intricate mechanical puzzles; send an arrow speeding true through the air — your hands can do nothing to help her, can do nothing to hold her there with you. "Frightened" is a profound, utter helplessness, bearing witness to the horrific inevitable.

Daryl Dixon was frightened.

In contrast, I felt calm, resolute. Purged. He helped me to my feet, his thumbs rubbing small, tentative circles on my upper arms. His eyes searched mine for some explanation, some logic in the face of all of this, but there really was none. "I want…I want to…" But there were so many things I wanted, so many things he couldn't give me. Chloe and RJ weren't my old ghosts, nor were my parents and brothers. I bore an intense, hallowed grief for the world as it had been; _that_ was the coil in my chest. That sadness deep within the heart of me, writhing and twisted and exacerbated by fear. It had an animal quality to it, something heated and living, and I was frightened of it, just like Daryl.

The circles stopped when my breathing evened, and a rueful smile dawned upon my face. "I'm fine," I murmured, peering over his shoulder to see that Merle had continued to fish, ignorant of any disruption. "I'm fine." Daryl didn't look convinced; he chewed on the skin around his thumb, eyes dashing back and forth between my face and my hands, where a slight tremor still echoed. "What Merle said…it just shocked me, is all," I continued, more earnestly this time. "I'm fine, Daryl." My use of his name seemed to jolt him back to action. We walked towards the river, together, his hand poised and ready to take mine, if need be.

* * *

Miraculously, they caught four fish. We grilled them quickly, scoffed them down, and then continued on our long way to nowhere. Merle remained none the wiser about my earlier meltdown, and I was perfectly content to leave it that way. For his part, Daryl repeatedly attempted to "check in on me," without overtly "checking in on me:" there were subtle looks back; he would stop at odd, sometimes inopportune moments; turn back or brush my arm to make me pause. He kept a close on my hands, watching out for the tremors to resume.

I wasn't fine, precisely, but my pain was now manageable. I understood it better, had finally confronted the exact notes of what it meant as it sang through my veins. Grief for my old world and the people in it whom I had loved — that was predominant, the foundation of it all. Layered on top of that was the keen, biting awareness of everything that had happened since, and everyone I'd met and cared for, and subsequently lost. At Merle's words, I had had to directly confront my own guilt, my own dark speculations about the fate of those still at the prison. I'd chosen Daryl and, indirectly, Merle, over those people who had saved my life, more times than I could count. I should've worked harder to pull Daryl back, I decided; should've tried to convince him to come with me, to leave Merle to his own devices, to choose _us_ over him.

Selfishly, I'd decided that pursuing a man I had once been juvenilely attracted to was more important than honouring the ties to my erstwhile group. Though they hadn't entered Woodbury with the express intention of rescuing me, they still did it, and were happy to be reunited with me. And then I'd just walked away, tossing out some pathetic excuse about choices and freedom, when in reality, it boiled down to the fact that I was half in love with Daryl Dixon, and forcing myself into his company was the closest I could get to him actually choosing to spend time with me. As though the lack of rejection constituted the eager beginnings of a fumbling romance.

Part of me wanted to express that to him, there stomping through the woods. But I couldn't find the words, let alone the proper moment. Perhaps tonight, once Merle had fallen asleep, I would buzz in his ear, this time telling him that I hadn't been driven, necessarily by the rightness of his decision, but rather something a little more personal. Maybe if he could understand that I had followed him for the same sentimental reason he had followed Merle, he could see that two of us were out here based on justifications that were far outweighed by the simple fact that our people — our family, our friends — were facing down an enemy we had helped to antagonize, without us.

Maybe; maybe.

"Smells to me like the Sawhatchee Creek," Merle said up ahead, as I struggled to avoid tripping on the thick undergrowth. The air was hot, tasting of high summer, and though my adrenaline and heartbeat had slowed considerably since the morning, I was still sweating profusely. I suspected, as well, that I reeked. We all did.

Daryl looked back at before answering; he still seemed to suspect that, at any moment, I might completely break down again. He had begun to prelude all conversation, comments, questions, and cigarette breaks with brief once-overs; probing glances in my direction; quick, superficial scans of my vitals. In one way, I thought as Daryl told his brother we hadn't travelled west enough for the waterway flowing beside us to be the Sawhatchee Creek — in one way, his concern was touching; in another, it made me feel weak and vulnerable, even more so than my sore ankle had done. I felt like a child, to be protected and cosseted. The anxiety attack hadn't necessarily made me feel weak: it had scraped me raw, exposed some home truths, and dredged up some repressed emotions, but that was nothing I couldn't handle. But Daryl's glances back, the way his voice went gravelly and low when he spoke to me — quiet, impersonal inquiries along the simple lines of "You good?" and "Need a break?" — that all collided and congealed into something upsetting, something that roiled in the pit of my stomach like soured milk.

"If there's a river down there, it's gotta be the Yellow Jacket," Daryl continued, his eyes sliding away from my face and his words earning him a vicious chuckle from his brother.

"You have a stroke, boy?" Merle asked sardonically. "We ain't never even come close to Yellow Jacket."

"We didn't go west," Daryl countered. "Just a little bit south. That's what I think."

The burgeoning argument meant nothing to me; I knew Georgia by its highways: how to get to certain Atlanta hotspots; the veins of a map, interstates and freeways and secondary highways, a rainbow of potential journeys. But this impenetrable, sultry forest, its rivers and its creeks, were all a continual series of surprises to me, a northeastern girl. Whether it was the Sawhatchee, the Yellow Jacket, or the goddamn Rubicon, I didn't give a flying fuck. I just wanted to go home. Trouble was, I had no sweet clue where my home was.

Merle scoffed. "Know what I think? I may have lost my hand, but you lost your sense of direction." He was breathing heavily as he attempted to navigate the uneven terrain here. There were frequent crests and valleys hidden beneath the thick foliage, some of them dramatic enough to twist an ankle or bring a whole body down. I wondered if Merle's balance had, at any point, been affected by the loss of his hand. Certainly, I mused, it would impact his instincts when actually falling or tripping, but on a daily basis, would it really have so much of an effect upon his equilibrium? Perhaps in the early days, it had, but as he had grown to adjust to the absence —

The sound that broke through the silent trees then was so old that it was nearly foreign to my ears, requiring a few moments of contemplation before I was able to place it. Daryl and Merle continued their argument, not noticing at first, as I stood, still and quiet, my eyes filling with tears as I considered the genesis of the sound, as I wondered what we could possibly do to ease it, as I feared that I was the only one who could actually hear it. "You hear that?" Daryl asked, his pace slowing.

"Yeah," Merle replied, his face unreadable. "Wild animals getting wild."

But it wasn't. It wasn't and we were not going to walk away without doing something. Blinking away the moisture from my eyes, I gently grabbed Daryl's bicep. I needed to make sure he heard _me_ , understood _me,_ because something disappointing told me that Merle did know what we were hearing, but just didn't want it to be our problem. "Daryl," I said urgently. "It's not animals."

He looked down at me, and his mouth twitched with some emotion I couldn't name. "No," he said, turning back to his brother, "it's a baby."

"Oh, come on," drawled Merle. "Why don't you just piss in my ear and tell me it's raining, too?" Daryl and I were barely listening to his brother's rambling; he adjusted his grip on his crossbow, I ensured my knife was firm in my hand. "That there's the sound of a couple of 'coons making love, sweet love. Know what I mean?" Merle winked.

On the wind rose a voice, panicked and desperate, warmly tinged with an accent I couldn't place: "They're coming! What should I do? What should I do?"

Daryl picked his way through the brush, one hand poised to fire on his crossbow, while my own fingers slipped and slid down the length of my knife's handle. It mattered, it mattered what we were doing: these were the choices that kept us human, that prevented us from spiralling into whatever particular hellish pit of depravity that the Governor had stumbled down. Hands on weapons, minds trained to help — it mattered.

I followed Daryl through the green, felt Merle's reluctant protests peppering my neck. Up ahead, two dozen yards away, a bridge stretched high over the river. There was a car — dusty, laden with supplies and hope — parked at the midway point, and a small horde of walkers were slowly but surely descending upon the group occupying the space. Two men, a father and son by the look of them, were clambering over the vehicle, fending off the dead with a couple of handguns. The baby's cries increased in volume as we moved closer. A few shots rang out, and my stomach clenched in fear, anticipation: we were not going to let them fight this alone. Were we? My eyes flicked over to Daryl, who was chewing his bottom lip in an expression I recognized as one of tension, indecision. One of the men fired off another round, and I felt Daryl shift on the balls of his feet. "Yeah?" I asked, hoping he understood my meaning.

Merle whistled then, a cold, cruel thing. "Hey, jump!" he laughed.

I couldn't help myself; I smacked him, as close to the ridge of his silver prosthesis as possible. "Fucking bastard," I muttered, as Daryl and I skirted around him, heading for the small treed incline that led up the riverbank.

"What?" I glanced back briefly to see Merle looking genuinely affronted. "Hey, man — I ain't wasting my bullets for a couple strangers that ain't never cooked me a meal or feliciated my piece." He followed us, stomping through the undergrowth. "That's my policy. You'd be wise to adopt it, brother."

You know, I've really grown to hate the assumption that a surge of adrenalin suddenly generates an insane amount of clarity, precision, and superhuman strength in people. I mean, sure, it certainly boosts your energy — all that blood pumping through your veins, the pell-mell tattoo of your heart in every inch of your body, the way the air tastes sweet and salty and bloody and blistering hot all at once — makes you feel invincible, but it also makes you clumsy.

Ridiculously clumsy.

I walked into a tree.

Daryl didn't even glance back at the impact, and Merle was far too busy indulging in his self-absorbed soliloquy that he likely wouldn't have noticed had _he_ slammed into the trunk, so I had a chance to recover, to reassess. The bridge was about thirty feet about the surface of the water, and it was strewn with the typical dystopian detritus: abandoned suitcases and backpacks; torn pieces of tarp and old tents, fluttering in the slight breeze; papers and books and toys and all the remnants of who we had been. There were about five vehicles, all parked haphazardly, but there was a clear enough path for the red station wagon, which — I guessed, based on the fact that a small knot of walkers were gathering tight around — held the crying baby. Ahead of me, Daryl had continued picking his way through the branches, keeping his body low and his crossbow aimed to fire at a second's notice. I scurried to catch up with him, slipping my knife out of the band of my jeans as I did. I tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"You stay here," he muttered as he glanced back. "You ain't doing this with just that pigsticker, girl."

I nodded, but had already resolved to ignore him. He may have conceded that I was tough enough to keep watch (within poking distance of one of them), but Daryl still didn't seem to understand that our months apart had allowed me to mature, to develop my skills and capability. He was hot and cold, happy I was there one minute, worried the next, and his concern was now boiling into something fearfully close to resentment. But he needed to realize — the dozen walkers milling about up there — between the five of us, that would be easy as pie. Luckily, he became distracted by the sound of a resounding splash, as a walker (or at least, I hoped it was a walker) hit the river below.

Up on the bridge, the father and son had managed to get themselves onto the flatbed of a pickup truck that had been backed up right to the edge of the guardrail. As Daryl moved closer, I stayed behind for a beat, doing another count and then assessing where I could be most effective. With the knife, I needed to be close, damn close, but even I realized my odds weren't great if I started going after the group pounding on the windows of the station wagon. Far too easy for the four of them to overwhelm me.

I decided to let Daryl go on ahead, initiate the fight, and then I would dash out just behind him. My goal was the car, but we had time. Time enough for him to pick off even just one or two of them, and then I could secure it against the remainder.

The father fired off two more rounds, and Daryl was still struggling to get through some of the thicker brush. My heart jumped in my throat, and I mentally berated myself for my miscalculation as I watched one of the dead wrap a scaly hand around the father's leg, pulling him closer to snapping, hungry jaws. I froze, the adrenalin cascading uselessly through my unsure limbs, and I closed my eyes against the price of my own folly.

And opened them again when the whistle of a bolt went screaming across the bridge. The walker twisted with the force of it, hitting the ground facing away from its intended prey, and I couldn't help but smile. What a goddamn nice guy.

Daryl stood a couple of yards in from the mouth of the bridge, shuffling his backpack from his shoulders as he readied the bow. _One more_ , I thought _, one more and I'll be up there, too_. I wanted to conserve my energy, my pain reserve. My ankle was nowhere near reliable, and I didn't want to become a burden up there. Better for me to be part of the clean-up crew, rather than risk screwing up the advance. He aimed; took down a female walker. My legs, jellied and prickling in equal measure, somehow propelled me forward as she fell, and I shot out, Merle close behind by now — though moving much slower.

I rammed my knife straight up under the chin of a nearby walker, slid it out as quickly as I could. It fell backwards, taking down a second one with it, giving me an opportunity to crush its skull beneath my boot. Not the pleasantest way to handle the dead, but nonetheless effective. The sound of it — and my own inadvertent gag that accompanied the hit — caught Daryl's attention and he turned briefly. "The fu —" I didn't give him a chance to finish; just pushed his shoulder down in time for me to reach past him and stab my third in the eye.

He blinked.

I grinned.

The brief exchange was just an island of calm in the middle of a chaotic ocean; around us, the remaining walkers began to buzz with excitement, spotting the three new fresh bodies that had entered the fray. The father and son were pleading in Spanish, desperate and high, and that snapped both of us back into action. Daryl pressed his boot onto the face of the female walker he'd just shot, retrieving his bolt from her skull. He wheeled around to force it into the head of another. I busied myself with handling a further two, shoving one back into a decrepit car missing a driver's side door. This enabled me to smash his head back down on the gearshift; the next one went on top of him.

Daryl was getting visibly frustrated with the frozen men still standing on the back of the pickup. "Come on, man. I'm trying to help you out! Cover me! Cover _her!_ " The older man's eyes flickered over to me, and perhaps the sight of a young woman fending off the dead was enough to inspire some sort of paternal protectiveness, strike at his male pride, or — to be honest, I didn't really give a shit what made him jump off the truck and join us on the pavement, just that he did.

I moved closer to the station wagon. I could see a woman cowering behind the wheel, cradling the baby close to her chest, and sobbing loudly. The old panic fluttered in my chest as the stakes were raised even higher. I shoved one away from the passenger side, hoping at least to clear a path for her to get out if need be. Daryl sent another bolt whistling through the air, taking down a walker scrabbling over the hood and windshield. He used the butt of the bow to knock another one down, and I raced to take down the third, the one pounding on the window next to the woman. That's when I saw another, the main cause of the woman's screams — a walker had crawled in through the open trunk of the vehicle and was grasping and clawing to get closer. "Daryl!" I shrieked, pointing as I tried to fight my way through to the back. His eyes followed my hand and he was there in a second, leaving me to finish off a walker who was getting a little too close for comfort to my right arm.

He reached into the depths of the trunk, and as I came around the corner of the car, I flashed back to the first day I met him, when those same corded arms had reached into my tent to save my life. I blinked back tears of frustration and a rush of bile as I watched him bring the trunk down on the walker's head, pulverizing it into a bright spray of brains and blood. "You good?" He reached out a hand to grip my left arm, pulling me along behind him towards the truck, not really waiting for an answer.

"Daryl, I got ya!" Merle hollered, shooting an advancing female walker full in the face. "Go!"

 _About fucking time_.

Despite my protests, Daryl pushed me up on the flatbed, and I caught the eye of the younger man, who was standing awkwardly near the edge, as though preparing to jump off. "Hey, hey, buddy," I said, trying to keep my voice as calm and reassuring as possible. "Do you have a gun? Uh, do you have…" I racked my brains, casting back to sophomore Spanish classes, but weaponry really hadn't come up very frequently in our word lists, funnily enough. "Do you have a gun, a pistol, a - a - _pistola_?" The boy shook his head forcefully, and I turned back towards the advancing eight or so walkers. There was little I could do up here with just my knife, so I hopped back down to stand between Daryl and the father, who was rapidly explaining something to Daryl in Spanish.

"Speak English!" Daryl demanded, firing off another bolt.

I looked around: Merle seemed to have a pretty good handle on the area around the station wagon, and Daryl was more than capable of taking care of the two approaching him, but I needed a task. Pain was beginning to shoot up my calf, my ankle was screaming from its ill-use, but I chose to ignore it, postpone it — I could cry and bitch later.

Off to the side, the father — whose efforts up to this point had been sufficiently valiant, in my opinion — realized he was out of bullets and subsequently upped the badass factor even more, tossing his gun aside and levelling a punch to the face of the walker he'd been trying to shoot. "Shit," I said appreciatively, deciding that there was where I could be of service. I eased myself down from the flatbed and pushed past Daryl's protesting hands, rammed my knife into the base of the walker's skull. It fell to the ground between the father and I, and fluidly, we both reached for another.

I focused on nothing but the man's eyes and the scabby flesh that squelched around my knife. Nothing else mattered to me in those moments. I was unaware of Daryl's actions or Merle's, and for once, I didn't care. I couldn't afford to, not when dead hands were reaching for my hair and my skin and the innocent man in front of me. It was just us.

And then I dropped my knife.

"Damn it!" I screamed, and it all went to shit. My ankle caught on a divot in the road, and I fell backwards. Pain shot up through my old injury, and every bruise the Governor had given me was suddenly burning as though brand-new. The father began speaking rapidly, desperately, and I tried to scramble back to a standing position, but my breath was completely gone.

Daryl's boots appeared near my head, and I looked up to see him stab his own hunting knife clear through the skull of the walker the father and I had been fending off, pushing it closer to the edge of the bridge as he did. When he had his knife out, he kicked it square in the chest, and he and the other man leaned over to watch it splash down below.

A hand reached down to grab mine, and I looked up into the face of the boy, whose face had relaxed just slightly from its earlier desperation. I smiled at him as he helped me up to my feet, steadying me on my bad ankle. " _Gracias_ ," I gasped, trying hard to get my wind back.

"Thank _you_ ," he responded, grinning widely.

Surveying the damage, it was clear to see that we'd done well. None of us had any injuries that I could see (I counted mine as an old flare-up, not a casualty) and though the baby and its mother were still weeping loudly from the car, everything seemed calm for the moment. Except for the fact that Merle was rummaging through the back of the family's station wagon. The son followed my gaze, and his anger was like a bursting balloon, the way it erupted. "Hey, hey, hey!" he snapped, leaving my side to rush over with his father.

I followed, uncertainly glancing over to see Daryl beginning to slowly, awkwardly, circle the vehicle.

The father was furious, raging in Spanish, and I knew enough to translate a few expletives. I couldn't blame him. "Merle!" I chastised, stumbling over. _Please let this not be what they think it is,_ I thought. Was there any possibility he was just checking on the woman, or straightening up the vehicle?

In his usual fashion, Merle Dixon quickly managed to dash all of my expectations of personal morality when he backed his head out of the car to aim his gun at the two men we'd just fought with and saved. "Slow down," he drawled. "That ain't no way to say 'thank you.'"

"Merle, come on," I said, breathing heavily. "This isn't…let's not do this. Let's just go, come on." Slowly, gently, I slid my way in front of the father, so that Merle's gun was now aimed directly between my eyes. "Come on, man."

"Let 'em go," Daryl growled, and our eyes met over the car. His were guarded, ashamed, scanning the stakes laid out before him. How could this situation have changed tone so quickly?

Mercifully, his brother's interjection seemed to move Merle on some level, who lowered his gun in response. "The least they can do is give us an enchilada or something, huh?" He ducked his head back into the vehicle, muttering hollow reassurances to the frightened woman in the front seat. Daryl was still moving, rounding the corner of the car to stand just behind his brother. And then, to my ultimate, everlasting surprise, he raised his crossbow to his brother's back.

"Get out of the car."

Merle stilled; every nerve in my body was at attention, singing with disbelief and unrelieved tension. I looked at Daryl, only at Daryl. "I know you're not talking to me, brother," drawled the elder Dixon.

Daryl jerked his chin at the men flanking me. "Get in your car and get the hell out of here," he snapped. When they didn't move, he increased his volume. "Go! Get in your car!"

A flurry of movement erupted as they struggled to do as he said, and I watched them go with an aching sense of disappointment. This wasn't how I'd hoped the end would go, but at least I now had the reassurance that Daryl wouldn't _always_ follow his brother blindly — there existed some independence of thought, some capacity for values that didn't adhere to Merle's deeply flawed code. _I followed the right man_ , I thought. I really had.

As the engine started to rumble and sputter to life, Merle pulled back out of the car and slammed the door shut — empty-handed. He poked out a fist at Daryl's crossbow, met his stony gaze with an aggravating smirk. Daryl just shoved away. Little boys fighting over toys.

"You good?" he muttered to me, taking hold of my arm as he passed, leading me further down the bridge. I nodded. "Good." He reached down to pick up his backpack, slung it back over his shoulders. "You can walk?"

"Slowly, but yeah," I replied, retrieving my gore-sheathed knife from the pavement near the base of a highway sign. It had somehow managed to slide down the length of the bridge. "Are you okay?" Daryl didn't answer, just looked back to make sure I was keeping up. And then we walked — away from Merle, away from the mess of good intentions; away from Yellow Jacket Creek.

* * *

The heat of the day didn't truly envelope us until we'd managed to probe deeper into it, there within the green expanse of the forest. Though we gained a certain amount of shade from the sun, it was still hot, sticky, and generally unpleasant. Sweat dripped down the small of my back, and I felt the sodden chafing of wet underarms and legs. "Hold on," I said to Daryl, after about ten minutes of walking. "Just give me a sec."

Kneeling, I took the knife from my waistband and deftly exploited a hole near my left kneecap. It ripped fairly neatly and cleanly, leaving me with a passable pair of cutoff shorts. I was acutely aware that my legs were painted with purple and yellow stains from the Governor's beating, but Daryl didn't say anything, so neither did I. Deftly, I finished off the second leg and then presented my handiwork. "What do you think?" I asked, pretending to preen.

I wasn't expecting him to smile, and so I wasn't disappointed. "Keep the extra," he said, gesturing to the puddles of discarded denim around my ankles. "Might come in handy." He paused, turned so that the backpack around his shoulders was facing me. "Stuff 'em in."

"The shit you doing, pointing that thing at me?" Merle's voice was an earthquake in the stillness of the forest. I jumped, hand still half in the backpack, and Daryl shot his brother a look of half-resentment, half-pity, and then directed me to continue down the path. "They were scared, man," he replied softly, beginning to walk again — this time, with Merle following.

"They were rude, is what they were," he snapped. "Rude and they owed us a token of gratitude." He stomped through the bushes behind us.

"For God's sake, Merle, don't be so stupid." I picked my way around stump, sending a look of venom his way to accompany my words. He held up a single finger in response, which I chose to elegantly ignore.

Daryl brushed past me slightly, navigating a sudden incline I hadn't seen. "The didn't owe us nothing."

His brother scoffed. "You helping people out of the goodness of your heart? Even though you might die doing it? Is that something your Sheriff Rick taught you?"

By this point in the argument, we'd entered somewhat of a small, sunlit clearing, trees ringing us around all sides. I couldn't help but think of theatres, of fighting pits, the Coliseum — all places, I thought, for shit to go down epically. "There was a baby!" Daryl rounded on his brother, punctuating every word by gesturing and jabbing with a spare bolt.

"Oh, otherwise you would-a just left them to the biters, then?" Merle retorted sardonically.

Tension rose like a fog around us, befuddling our awareness of things best left unsaid and blurring the lines between our shared history, so that in the next breath Daryl took us back to a hot Atlanta day, on a rooftop, when he had sobbed like a child right in front of me, and in the present, my heart clenched just the same. "Man, I went back for you, you weren't there. I didn't cut off your hand neither. You did that." Every syllable was punctuated with a jab or sweep of the same bolt; something crowded his throat, but whether that was tears or expletives, I couldn't say. "Way before they locked you up on that roof. You asked for it."

This was the moment for reason, for calm, so against my better judgement, I touched Daryl's arm and cleared my throat. "Guys, can we just — "

"You shut your goddamn mouth!" Merle didn't even look at me.

"Don't talk to her like that!" Daryl lunged forward, but I managed to pull him back.

But Merle was still ramping up. "You brought your stupid bitch along, and she almost got you killed out there!"

I wanted to interject, but the words wouldn't come. Rapidly, I second-guessed every decision I could recall making out on that bridge. Had any harm nearly come to Daryl at any point out there, because of something I'd done, or hadn't done? "Shut up — she did a hell of a lot more than you." He poked his bolt even closer to Merle's face. "And she ain't a fucking bitch."

Merle just chuckled. "You know — you know what's funny to me? Hm? You and Sheriff Rick are like this now." He held up his remaining hand, index and middle fingers crossed slightly to demonstrate his point. "Right? I bet you a penny and a fiddle of gold that you never told him, or your sweet, innocent baby girl here that we were planning on robbing that camp blind."

Only the buzz of mosquitos was audible after Merle let that drop. My hand slipped from Daryl's arm, and he turned to me with a hurt expression. "It didn't happen," he said quietly, as much to me as to his brother. "It didn't happen."

When I had first arrived at the quarry camp, my fumbling closeness with Daryl had been perceived with a significant amount of suspicion and disapproval by many in the group. I had assumed they were just being stuffy, holding on too rigidly to the conventions of a different world. Didn't they get it? I _knew_ Daryl — he was a good man, and he was good to me. He was an outlier, that was all. Nothing to worry about.

They'd been right after all.

I took a half step backwards, in complete amazement at how quickly my worldview had been altered once more. The past two days had been a series of continual upheavals — from imprisonment to liberty to flight and risk, and now to betrayal. The two images I had of Daryl now would not sit neatly in my mind: I couldn't reconcile my nascent attraction with the coil of bitterness that now stirred in my stomach. Looking at him now, there were no butterflies, only suspicion.

For his part, Daryl was now avoiding my gaze, his eyes raking the ground rather than meet mine. Shame? "It didn't happen," he murmured.

"Yeah, it didn't," Merle sniggered. "'Cause I wasn't there to help you."

"What, like when we were kids?" Daryl spat, rounding on his brother once more. "Who left who then?"

I backed away, not wanting to hear anymore. This wasn't my fight; I had nothing to do with these men. I wanted to be away, far away, back in my dorm room with Chloe, before the world went to hell, before I knew a man called Daryl or his batshit crazy brother. Before, before, before.

"What?" Merle hollered. "Huh? Is that why I lost my hand?"

"You lost your hand 'cause you're a simpleminded piece of shit!" Daryl whipped violently away from his brother, but Merle was faster: he reached out a hand to grab Daryl by the back of the shirt, to haul him back to the fight. He missed the mark slightly, though, grasping hold of a piece too close to the frayed edge of Daryl's ripped-off sleeve, and the whole back of the shirt gave way when Daryl stumbled and fell to his knees on the ground.

And for the thousandth time that day, I shifted loyalties one more time, this time moved to complete and utter devastation at the sight of Daryl's back. Pitted and ridged with old, purplish scars, his skin told a tale I knew I didn't want to hear. I brought a hand to my mouth, to hold back my cry, and to keep myself from touching him at this moment, his most vulnerable.

"I-I, I didn't know he was…" Merle sputtered, as shocked as I was. We stood and watched as Daryl scrabbled at the shirt on his back, struggling to sling the backpack over his shoulders again.

I whispered his name, but neither of them heard me. "Yeah," Daryl continued, finally managing to stand, but refusing to look at either of us. "He did. That's why you left first."

Merle's eyes met mine, tinged with desperation, but there was nothing I could do. "I had to, man. I woulda killed him otherwise," he said, regretfully, earnestly.

Daryl didn't react, just picked up his knife from where it had fallen to the forest floor and began to stride away. "Where you going?" Merle demanded, and his brother turned, choosing to look at me instead.

"Back where I belong." The words, and the expression that Daryl now wore — equal parts shame, grief, and apology — were simultaneously a declaration and an invitation, to both of us, but it warmed me more. The robbery thing, we could deal with that later. For now, we could go home, wherever that was, together. I scrambled up the incline to stand beside him, resisting the urge to make some sort of physical connection with him, in light of what he had just inadvertently revealed to us. _Back where_ we _belong_ , I thought. I wasn't sure right now what kind of mess we were heading back into, but we were part of it, we always had been. I had received only a small taste of what the Governor was capable of, and I didn't want that for the rest of my family.

Guilt tastes sweet at first, then sickly and decadent, and you roll it around on your tongue for ages, trying to get used to it, but you never can. And now it burst in my mouth, cloying and tart — but I had a chance now to make it right.

All three of us did.

"I can't go with you," Merle said, unshed tears shining in his eyes. "I tried to kill that black bitch. Damn near killed the Chinese kid."

"He's Korean," Daryl corrected, and I bit back an inappropriate smile thinking about the day in the alleyway, a million years ago, when he'd himself made the same assumption.

"Whatever!" Merle snapped. "Doesn't matter, man. I just can't go with you."

A lifetime passed, and we stood together in the stillness of the glade, the hum of cicadas rising around us. Daryl stared at his feet, then the bolt in his hands, and finally drew his eyes up to my face. My expression was intentionally inscrutable; this wasn't my fight, and I couldn't egg him in either direction. "You know," he said quietly, turning to face his brother, "I may be the one walking away, but you're the one that's leaving. Again."

* * *

Retribution, when it came, burst as a truck through the front gates of the prison we were all going to try and call home. Daryl heard the crash first, and he wheeled about on the forest path, trying to orient himself to it. "How far?" I asked, panicked. He just shook his head in response, and began to run, following the sound of rapid gunfire.

Everything hurt, but it's far easier to run when you have a strong suspicion that your family is in danger (funny that, isn't it). We sprinted through the forest as fluidly as though it were a flat, open field. I navigated protruding tree branches as the dull, shocked silence filled the horrifying spaces between our fears, as I pictured the worst of the worst case scenarios befalling Rick and his children, Michonne and the Greene girls, Carol and Hershel…

We broke out into sunlight around the edge of a field, and I could see the prison in the distance: a sprawling concrete structure that said nothing so blatant as "home." The fences glinted silver in the afternoon light, temporarily camouflaging the chaos milling around in the interior field, overgrown as it was with untended grass. It was a stark contrast to the carefully manicured appearance of Woodbury, and I was grateful for it.

In the centre of the inner field, tilted at an uncertain angle, a cube van's back doors had sprung open and from within poured dozens of walkers; their moans converging to a deadly crescendo. In the centre of that horde, a weapon — smooth as silk, fatal as its wielder — rose high in the air and sliced down in a familiar arc. Mich.

"I'm headed for the middle," I said, pointing towards her, hardly caring whether Daryl had an opinion about this or not. Wiping my sweaty palms on what remained of my jeans, I scanned the distance wildly, trying to determine if there was any point of entry other than the front gate — where I could a couple of vehicles parked, and the one face I hadn't wanted to see ever again smiling widely at his work. My knife was in my hand, my heart was in my throat, but where there's a will (or at least a complete lack of self-preservation), there's a way.

"Take this, kid." Merle shoved a piece of rebar into my free hand. It was about a foot long, and I saw that he'd found it on the ground near the forest's edge — the remnants of some unfinished construction project, perhaps? He had selected a piece about three feet long for himself. He had caught up with us fairly quickly, even before we started running.

I squeezed Daryl's arm before I began to sprint away, hoping that if that was to be my goodbye, it somehow told him everything: _Thank you; I forgive you; your hair looks so much better when you shower._ And then I ran towards a portion of the fence where the dog-run had collapsed slightly on the inner line, feet pounding on the ground in a familiar tattoo that took me back to fourteen and field hockey, not twenty-two and massacre. Perhaps that was what made it possible for me to fling myself at the side of the fence and scramble up, tossing my rebar over to better enable my grip. The brittle metal dug into my exposed legs, and I felt a slight rip on the inside of my thigh when I reached the top and gingerly inched over the barbed wire as deftly as I could. As I straddled the top, I debated whether a drop would be better or would count as the stupidest decision of my life to date. I looked over; Michonne hadn't noticed me, but Daryl and Merle had just struck down two walkers that had somehow gotten Rick pinned to the fence.

Okay, then.

I allowed myself a couple of seconds to scale down the first several feet, and then jumped into a roll that gained me nearly a whole yard and a world of pain in my shoulder when I finally stopped. Scrambling to my feet, four walkers took notice of me and I was able to dispatch them with just the rebar. Shots were being fired from multiple directions; a couple from somewhere behind me. Michonne whirled around and caught my eye mid-slash, and I waved idiotically across the expanse of the field. She pointed, jabbed to my left with a panicked expression, and I turned to see Hershel Greene limping awkwardly away from three walkers that had caught sight of him.

They went down fairly easily with the rebar, and I made a mental note with dozens of mental exclamation marks to thank Merle for his quick thinking — if we both survived, that is. "Long time no see," I quipped to Hershel, offering a helping hand as I surveyed our surroundings for a likely safe spot. He grabbed at a pair of crutches as best he could; I glanced down to see that the lower part of one leg was gone. Bile and apology rose to my throat.

"It sure is good to see you again, sweetheart," he huffed in reply, leaning on my shoulders. "Wish it was under calmer circumstances."

"Yeah," I agreed, spotting Michonne heading our way. "But then we wouldn't be us, would we?"

A grey truck cut between us then, thumping along the uneven ground in a case of truly spectacular timing. The horde was doubling by the second, it seemed, with more and more walkers likely being drawn in by the chaos of the attack. Michonne silently looped Hershel's other arm around her shoulders as Glenn emerged from the vehicle. "Get in, get in!"

I took my window as soon as I saw it; Glenn eased Hershel from my shoulders and started directing him to the truck, shoving him ungracefully into the passenger seat while Michonne made for the back. A veritable wave of the dead somehow managed to swoop between us then, and I hung back. "Riley! Get in!" Michonne screamed from the open window, as Glenn tried to angle the truck in my direction.

"I'm fine! GO!"

Like a shot, I ran back to the fence where Daryl, Merle, and Rick were fending off their own growing horde. I scaled the chainlink one more time, slipping and sliding with bloody hands and legs down the other side. Daryl shoved one back against the fence to secure my landing, so I did him the courtesy of ramming the rebar through its skull. Merle had a walker on the ground, stabbing his prosthetic hand into its face. I pushed one away from Rick, left my makeshift spear impaled through its head, and used my knife to finish off one more. Rick paid me back by taking care of the last one standing, who had been reaching for my shoulder.

All four of us were breathing heavily; blood was dripping from somewhere in my hairline, though I wasn't sure how that had happened. I touched it; it stung and a sheen of red coated my fingertips, but I could still see straight, and I always tended to count that as a victory.

"You good?"

Daryl was standing a little apart from Rick and I, obviously uncertain of his reception. I turned at the sound of his voice, and nodded reassuringly. "These jeans are officially ruined, but I'm good," I joked quietly, and then against everything in my brain telling me not to, I hugged him. Much to my surprise, he yielded easily to my touch. By no means did he embrace me, though one hand twitched near my side — but that didn't matter to me. I was alive, he was alive, and we were right where we belonged. Home.


	18. I Ain't A Judas

_**Chapter XVIII: I Ain't A Judas**_

"We're not leaving."

Rick was adamant, angry — pacing like a caged tiger, and I admit to taking a moment to reevaluate our decision in coming back. I hadn't exactly been expecting a warm, festive welcome from the prison group we'd left behind, but this Rick was the complete antithesis of the man I had always previously been fully prepared to follow into anything.

In the first few hours after the Governor's attack, we'd taken time to treat the minor injuries some of us had sustained (I'd received six stitches on my thigh, and four on my head), have a brief meal and some form of respite, waking early this morning to a quiet, tense atmosphere. Maggie had loaned me a cleaner pair of jeans and a spare t-shirt, and Daryl had snuck away to change out of his torn shirt, and then gone to sleep in one of the cells. I hadn't had a chance to talk to him since. Earlier, I'd tried to engage him in conversation, but he moved away from me before the words were even fully out of my mouth, choosing instead to stomp up the stairs to the overhanging catwalk. He leaned over the rail and I trained my embarrassed face on Rick, silencing the swirling, panicked questions in my mind. They didn't need to be asked, not right now.

The surviving inmates (we'd only lost one person, someone named Axel) were gathered in Cellblock D, the only real secure, cleared area thus far in the prison. Rick was loading up a shotgun, and the rest of us were trying to come up with a more logical plan.

"We can't stay here," Hershel countered firmly, still the voice of reason.

"What if there's another sniper?" Maggie pointed out. "A wood pallet won't stop one of those rounds." I nodded in silent agreement, but no one was really bothering with me. Besides Hershel tending my wounds and Maggie tossing me the clothes, I hadn't yet had much interaction with any members of the prison group. Even Michonne had kept a silent, impassive distance from me. A creeping suspicion that maybe I was no longer welcome had been brewing in my mind since Daryl's silent, mostly immobile response to my embrace out in the field. I had hoped that because I was returning _with_ him, any lingering sting from my rejection of the prison out there on the highway would be excused, particularly in light of our helpful timing in coming back.

So I just took a few steps back, tucking myself in beside the staircase and leaning against the rail. Maybe I shouldn't try and force my presence, not yet.

Beth piped up from the catwalk: "We can't even go outside."

"Not in the daylight," Carol added.

I glanced upwards; Beth was leaning on the corner rail of the catwalk, Carol was closer to the stairs. Further down, Daryl was still studiously avoiding my corner of the space. I bit back a flash of anxiety, forcing myself to focus on the issue and discussion at hand, rather than wonder if I'd just completely ruined my friendship with one guy.

"Rick says we're not running, we're not running." Glenn was emphatic, visibly frustrated.

Merle's drawl emerged from the cafeteria at the far end of the cellblock, which had been firmly gated and locked: "No, better to live like rats."

"You got a better idea?" Rick turned to face him. I just rolled my eyes. We were about to be treated to another one of Merle's charming, self-aggrandizing rants.

"Yeah," he continued. "We shoulda slid out of here last night and lived to fight another day. But we lost that window, didn't we? I'm sure he's got scouts on every road out of this place by now."

Up on the catwalk, Daryl had begun to pace. "We ain't scared of that prick," he said.

"Y'all should be." Merle levelled a steely glare at Rick. "That truck through the fence thing, that's just him ringing the doorbell. We might have some thick walls to hide behind, but he's got the guns and the numbers. And if he takes the high ground around this place, shoot — he could just starve us out if he wanted to."

Maggie twisted a rag around in her hands, having just finished cleaning one of her guns. "Let's put him in the other cellblock," she said dismissively.

"No," Daryl interjected. "He's got a point." I looked up again, and this time caught his eye. He was tense, but held my gaze for a couple of moments before turning back to stare at the railing.

"He does," I agreed, but no one else looked at me, not even Maggie, who appeared to be working up to some rant of her own.

"This is all you," she shrilled, gesturing to Merle, who just smirked at her in response. "You started this."

"What's the difference who's fault it is?" Beth stomped over to the staircase in frustration, and I was taken aback. At the farm, she'd been sweet, quiet, polite — I liked this fiery side to her, though, I had to admit. "What do we do?"

"I said we should leave." Her father had sat down to rest on the bottom stairs; the loss of his leg a few weeks before had weakened Hershel's energy levels considerably, and the amputation had likely presented a new element to the plans for survival in any situation for the rest of the group. "Now Axel's dead. We can't just sit here."

Rick scanned the group, and I watched him take the temperature of the room, in his usual fashion. It was something he was typically pretty good at — understanding the various stakes present; navigating tricky differences of opinion; and then coming to either the most logical or most agreeable solution for us all. But Lori's death had totalled him emotionally, fracturing his capacity for leading with logic or agreeability, and therein, I realized now, lay the biggest tension in the room. Rick himself.

He just walked away, silent, guns in hand. Claiming a stance for himself — or a death sentence. I chewed on my lip in frustration and confusion, hoping that someone else would —

"Get back here!" Hershel's voice had grown harsher than I'd ever heard it, ringing through this wide open space with the force of a hurricane. It stopped Rick right in his tracks. "You're slipping, Rick," Hershel continued, using his crutches to inch his way closer. "We've all seen it. We understand why. But now is not the time. You once said this isn't a democracy? Now you have to own up to that. I put my family's life in your hands. So get your head clear and do something."

* * *

"Thanks again for the change of clothes." I reached down to pick up the rag Maggie had just dropped. "I really appreciate it." She reached out her hand to take it, but didn't look up from her task.

"It's nothing."

Back at the farm, Maggie and I had been working on developing quite a real friendship, bonding over our close ages and similar experiences. Her blossoming relationship with Glenn at the time had been a keen topic of conversations on the front porch, and she'd teasingly pointed out all the time I'd spent with Daryl. I liked her, a lot. And yet now, she was terse, clipped, seemingly affronted — when she'd given me the clothes, she'd just tossed them on the mattress with a few short words. At the time, I'd just assumed she was tired, and I knew now that everyone was on-edge, but I at least would've thought she'd be happy to see me, on some level.

"Maggie, what's going on?" I asked in a low voice. "Are we cool?"

She wheeled around to face me, eyes bright with rage. "'Cool?' Are we 'cool?' Did you seriously just ask me that, Riley? Goddamnit, you can be such an idiot sometimes!"

I took a step back, hands held up in surrender, but she kept coming. "Do you know what they did to us? He ripped my shirt off and he pushed me over a table — he had them beat the shit out of Glenn! They were about to kill us and you just ran off, into the blue, after your _stupid_ little crush!" Her voice was shrill, piercing and it cut me to the quick. Even though I had started to shift uncertainly in my place, despite the fact that every pair of eyes in the room was trained on us, she kept going. Her hands were moving so violently in front of my face, I was sure she would slap me at any moment. "You're so selfish! I can't stand it. What you did — you just left, and he didn't even want you to come! And you still did it! We needed you here! Look what happened! Damn it, I can't believe y — "

A hand, dark and swift, reached out and grasped Maggie's raised one, which had indeed been headed right for my tearstained cheek. "Enough," Michonne snapped. "Leave her alone."

I was completely mortified, and positively limp with guilt. I couldn't bear to look anyone in the eye, let alone Michonne or Maggie, so I just ran, back down towards the office a few paces down the hall, which Carol had explained last night had been cleared. I slammed the door closed behind me and slid to the floor with a sob.

I'd fucked it all up, spectacularly. Rick had offered me home on that highway, and I'd thrown it away for a chance at a cosy weekend getaway with a man who couldn't even tolerate my touch. The reasonable thing to do would've been to join Rick, Glenn, and Maggie in convincing Daryl to come back with us; to help Daryl himself negotiate for Merle's tagging-along. But no; I just couldn't keep things simple, or even remotely logical. I just couldn't play by the rules, had to be stupid and insensitive and selfish and do whatever the hell amused me at the moment.

The door clicked open, and I looked up, expecting to see Michonne or Carol or maybe even a sympathetic Beth, but it was Daryl. His face was unreadable, his movements awkward and uncertain as he took in the sight of me crying on the floor of an abandoned warden's office. He closed the door gently and then leaned back against it, studying the mess of papers littering the tile. "She shouldna talked to you like that," he muttered. "Your friend's out there giving her hell now."

I sniffed, wiped self-consciously at my nose. "She's right. I'm a piece of shit for doing what I did, leaving."

He gave me a wry smile. "Wouldn't that make me a bigger piece of shit, since I left first?"

"Oh. I didn't mean — "

"Stop. I was joking, girl, cool it." He shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. "She's wrong, Riley. About everything. None of this is your fault. You ain't stupid, and you sure as hell ain't selfish. You made a choice. You're allowed to do that. I did."

"Yeah, but you chose your brother. I just chose to leave because I was 'afraid of walls now,' total bullshit." Heavily, laden with guilt and tears, I moved to sit on the desk near where he stood. "But I just…feel separate now. Like I'm not a part of this anymore. And for the past nine, ten, whatever months…you guys were all I thought about, every minute of every day." His eyes were blue and hot on mine, the most intense stare I'd ever received from him, and I smiled sadly in the face of it. "Ever since that night at the farm. I would dream about _this_ , that's the thing. I-I'd dream that you guys hated me, wished I was dead."

"That's fucked up, you know that."

And then it burst. Clear out of me, the words I'd been holding back since we two had been reunited — the thought that had plagued me repeatedly, endlessly, deafeningly every day of the past several months: that Daryl had left me behind. I cried as I told him, watched my tears splash clear down to the warden's floor, and realized that if I hadn't pissed him off yesterday with the hug, I sure as hell had done it now.

He was still and quiet for a while, and then came a tiny, papery rustling. He was turning something white over in his hands, something that he then reached out to me.

 _Thanks — R_. It was the note I'd written him the night after our adventure in the woods, back at the Greene farm. After we'd fallen down into the ravine; after I'd first screwed up my ankle. A piece of paper, ripped from a notebook, with just one word and a letter, and he'd kept it all this time. I blushed bright, scarcely able to take a breath. "I tried to go back for you," he said softly. "That night, but Lori said she'd seen you fall. And then we had to move on. Herd was too big. But we all thought about you, every day. And we all missed you, Riley."

"I was in the well," I choked back another sob. "I fell into the well."

He nodded. Swallowed hard.

"You kept this?" I held the note aloft, and he ducked his head down, but whether it was embarrassment or something else, I couldn't tell.

"Yeah. It was the only thing I had to…to remember you."

"And you wanted to? Remember me?"

Glaciers moved and eons passed in the minutes it took him to reply. He cleared his throat exactly four times, chewed the edge of his thumb for approximately ten years, and then finally nodded. "'Course I did."

What was this? What were _we_? I still didn't know where we stood, who we were to each other, but the warmth spreading through me now was the pleasantest I'd felt in a long time, so I just smiled and looked down at the paper one more time. He'd wanted to remember. Of course he did. "I thought you were mad at me today. Because of the hug."

More glaciers. More eons. The man wasn't going to have any thumbs left after this conversation. "I, uh…I just didn't…" Whether he was attempting to choose his words carefully or he just genuinely didn't know how to express this thought, I couldn't tell, but his next words tasted of hope and promises so I chose to savour them, even though he left me the second after they'd escaped his lips, taking the note with him: "I don't know what this is."

* * *

Developments rushed and rolled by us as the afternoon wore on. Daryl carefully avoided my presence for most of the day, spending his time mending some bolts in the upper level cell he'd claimed as his own, but I didn't mind. The conversation in the office had eased so many compulsive, agonizing thoughts in my mind, and I felt more confident in seeking out Maggie, who apologized profusely, acknowledging that I too had suffered under the Governor's thumb. We embraced, but didn't cry — I had had enough of that for one day.

The tension amongst the inmates seemed to ratchet up a few notches, springing taut and poised for action as Rick presented a defensive plan and assigned us our posts. "Take watch," he said to Maggie, handing her a set of keys. "Eyes open, head down." She nodded and headed out towards the guardhouse. "Field's filled with walkers," he continued, setting down a gun in a nearby cell and then approaching Hershel, Glenn ,Michonne, and myself at the far end of the cellblock. "I didn't see any snipers out there, but we'll keep Maggie on watch."

Daryl had joined us from the catwalk, and stood with his hands on his hips, arms in a wide triangle behind him. For some reason, this stance made me bite back a smile, as I realized I'd never seen him do it before. "I'll get up on the guard tower, take out half them walkers, give these guys a chance to fix the fence." He jerked his head idly towards me and Glenn.

"Or use some of the cars to put the bus in place," Michonne suggested.

"We can't access the field without burning through our bullets," Hershel countered evenly.

"What if we drew some of them to the yard fence, the interior one?" Everyone's eyes turned to meet mine; Daryl was chewing on his thumb again. "We could pick off some with knives and rebar through the fence and then clear it enough to go hand-to-hand in the field. And if Daryl's up there in the guard tower, we could bring down the numbers even faster."

Hershel nodded. "Maybe. But it might take time we don't have."

"So we're trapped in here," Glenn said bitterly. "There's barely any food or ammo."

"Been here before," Daryl shrugged. "We'll be all right."

The early days at the prison had been both chaotic and halcyon, according to Beth. The group had spent the entire winter on the road, moving from location to location, raiding and clearing houses and stores and spending more nights huddled together in cars on the highway than in actual structures. When they'd found this place, it had been nearly entirely overrun with walkers, but they'd managed to clear out this first cellblock, the prison yard, and the field, gaining them, for the first time since the farm, a permanent and functional living space.

"That's when it was just us," Glenn shot back. "Before there was a snake in the nest."

Daryl's face darkened with those words, and even I felt my back go up. Yeah, Merle was a piece of shit, but he'd helped us out there in that field, he'd agreed to stay locked up and separated from us, and he presented us with a valuable source of information about the Governor. Add to that — we'd already had this argument two days ago, and I didn't want to have it again. Neither, apparently, did Daryl: "Man, we gonna go through this again?" He glowered at Glenn. "Look, Merle's staying here. He's with us now. Get used to it. All y'all." He stalked off, back up the stairs to the upper level cells. He was hurt, I knew that, and frustrated, but I didn't, for some reason, feel the need to follow _him_ this time. I didn't want to overwhelm him, and fighting his corner when he was too angry to do it himself, that might prove more to him than trying to smother his emotions with my presence.

Glenn had leaned closer to Rick. "I don't think Merle living here is really gonna fly," he said tersely.

"I can't kick him out," Rick protested.

"I wouldn't ask you to live with Shane after he tried to kill you!"

Quietly, I pointed out there was a difference here. "Oh yeah?" Glenn rounded on me. "Such as?"

"We need him." I straightened my back, looked him dead in the eye. "He knows the Governor, knows what moves he'll make, what kind of resources we're going up against. He pulled his own out there yesterday, and he'll do it again, especially if it's for Daryl." Much to my relief, Glenn broke our tense, shared gaze first, turning away to scoff at my interjection.

"Merle has military experience," Hershel added heavily. "He may be erratic, but Riley's right — don't underestimate his loyalty to his brother."

Glenn just shook his head. "What if we solve both problems at once? Deliver Merle to the Governor. Bargaining chip. Give him his traitor, maybe declare a truce."

It was not a nice option, not at all, and it sent a creeping feeling up my spine that Hershel, Michonne, and Rick were silent to its' announcement. I was worried about Daryl hearing it, worried about it actually taking place. Merle was far from innocent, but we'd only received a small taste of what the Governor truly was capable of — and I suspected that he'd simply accept our offering and then kill us to boot, gaining us absolutely nothing, and costing everything.

* * *

Judith slept up on the catwalk, in a small box labelled "Lil Asskicker," and I could only assume it was Daryl's penmanship and creativity at work there. I'd been sitting down on the steps, long after Rick, Glenn, Hershel, and Michonne had dispersed, after I'd defended Merle one last time and pointed out the potential risks of Glenn's suggestion. That had earned me a hard look from him, and an inscrutable expression from the others. So I'd stayed behind, picking at the loose threads of my new jeans and idly scratching at the stitches on my forehead — until I heard her.

I'd never been much good with babies; I preferred toddlers and little kids, ones who had developed personalities and communication skills. But the soft sounds coming from the little makeshift crib up there on the catwalk had drawn me, especially when I didn't see Beth or Carol headed towards her.

"Hey, there," I whispered, drawing to the edge of her bed. She was all pink and new, those soft rings carved into plump wrists and ankles. When I picked her up, she nestled in my arms, nuzzled her face into my shoulder, rooting. Warm and gentle, she started drifting off again in my embrace, quietly snuffling in my ear as she settled and slept. "You're pretty sweet, honey," I murmured, shifting her slightly in my arms so that her head lay in the crook of my elbow instead. "You're pretty darn sweet."

"She sure is." I looked up to see Carol leaning against a cell door, smiling at the two of us. "She's a real good baby, too."

The girl in question began to stir one more time, this time a little more ardently. Blue eyes fluttered open to meet mine, and a pair of rosebud lips parted to let loose a tiny wail. "Oh, my," I whispered, "oh, my, my, my." Carol held out a slim baby bottle, already filled nearly to the top with formula. She offered to take her, but I told her I didn't mind, and she suggested I go sit down in a cell. She pointed to the third one down, and naturally, who should be leaning against the headrail of the bottom bunk, but Daryl.

I muttered an apology and began to back out of his space, but he cut me off. "'S fine, sit down." He shifted his boots over and tossed a spare shirt to the floor. I eased down as gently as I could onto the low bed, ducking under the top bunk to do so. Judith was eager for the bottle, latching on firmly and enthusiastically when I held it up to her lips.

"I like the name," I said quietly, watching as her eyes drifted shut in contentment.

"Yeah," he said, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Carl named her, after his teacher, I think."

I gave him an incredulous look. "Carl had a teacher named 'Lil Asskicker?'"

Daryl Dixon's laughter is quite something. It's never as much as you want, as long or as loud, but it comes with no warning, and it changes his whole face. A grin broke across days of tension and arguing, and all of a sudden I felt like it didn't matter that I'd seen his back, or that we'd had to come here with our tails between our legs, or that just hours before, I'd cried like a baby in front of him. Making Daryl Dixon laugh was the most fun I'd had in months. He chuckled at my joke and then slid closer on the bed, our shoulders nearly brushing as he leaned his elbows on his knees. "That was lame as fuck, girl."

"Yeah," I agreed, tipping the bottle forward a little more to ensure Judith didn't suck in too much air. "She's beautiful." He reached out one finger to stroke along the lengths of her minuscule eyebrows as I spoke. "You know, I never thought I'd see a baby ever again, not in a world like this."

"Me neither." He cleared his throat. "You're good with her."

"Thanks." I smiled. "I used to do some babysitting in high school, and I had a couple of younger neighbours. I'd help out with them now and then. They're more fun when they're toddlers, though. Sorry, honey," I added, looking back down to Judith.

"Thanks for sticking up for Merle down there," he said quietly. "I know he's an asshole."

"So were my brothers," I shrugged. "And even if he is an asshole, he's your asshole." I tapped the last little bit of formula out of the bottle and into Judith's mouth as I realized what I had just said to Daryl, and glanced up to see his mouth twisting into a disbelieving smirk at my expense. "Shit. Can we pretend I didn't just say that? I'd really like to take that ba — "

"Dad!" Carl's panicked voice came from down below, and just like that, Daryl was taut, ready for something. "Dad! Andrea's here, she's out at the gate!"

Daryl's eyes were wide as he looked down at me and the baby. "You stay here with her," he said, brushing his fingers over the top of Judith's head as he stood and rummaged around on the floor for his crossbow. "Don't leave the cell."

"But it's just Andrea!" I protested.

"She might not be alone!" he said sharply, turning back to me in the doorway. "Look, just stay here with her. If anything happens, I'll come back for you, okay?"

I didn't like it, but I didn't have much choice. I watched as Carol hurried down the stairs ahead of Daryl, shotgun already in hand, so I figured there was no one else to take the baby. And she certainly couldn't be left alone. But hanging back didn't suit me, made me itch, so while I waited, I took stock of potential weapons — I still had my knife in my waistband, and I could see at least two others on the floor of Daryl's cell. It might be enough to protect myself and Judith, if need be, but I really had no idea what kind of threat the Governor might pose to a little girl. Despite what Merle had said — and I really could see him levelling this entire prison — I felt certain he wouldn't harm Judith. He couldn't.

There was a commotion brewing in the yard; I counted the shouts, the expletives; listened for the second closing of the gate. I heard a high, brief scream, accompanied by the rattle of the chainlink fence. Judith was still, mercifully, quite calm, despite her brother's outburst, and the sharpness of Daryl's tone. I rocked her slightly in my arms, and she blinked up at me, so fully trusting of me, a complete stranger. "But I've known you for a while," I whispered to her. "I knew you when you were a secret on the farm, before your mom told anybody else. I knew you then, honey." I pressed my lips to her forehead.

"Riley?"

Carol stood uncertainly in the doorway of the cell, breathing heavily from her ordeal outside. "Everything okay?" I asked, rising gingerly to my feet.

She nodded, reaching out her arms for the baby. "Yes, everybody's fine. It was just Andrea." Smoothing down the blanket that Judith had been carefully swaddled in, she smiled up at me. "Thank you for staying with her. You've got a real touch. I'll put her back down; maybe she'll sleep through everything."

I waited for her to lay the baby back in the crib, and then we headed downstairs together. The rest of the group had assembled in the cafeteria: surprisingly, Merle was armed, standing near the door. He'd obviously headed out with them, which I felt was a positive sign, an acknowledgement of trust. I skirted to the side, heading to the table Daryl had claimed, climbing up beside him when he indicated with a slight nod of his chin that I should. We watched as Andrea embraced Carol, and began to receive the mournful updates about those of us who had survived, and those who had not.

She scanned the grey space wildly, visibly taking a tally of who was still with us. "I can't believe this," she breathed, taking in the (admittedly) grim aspect of it all. "Where's Shane?"

Rick just shook his head. I hadn't heard the entire story yet about what had happened to Shane, just that it had taken place the night the farm burned. And that Rick had had something to do with it. "And Lori?" she continued, insensitively.

I looked down at my knee, sitting alongside Daryl's. _"You can't tell anyone, Riley, not yet, okay?_ " I'd tried to tell Glenn the pregnancy test was mine, that I'd missed my period and was worried, but he'd figured it out anyway. He'd done his own math after that, and the secret had sat with us both for days. And now that secret was sleeping upstairs in a box.

"She had a girl." Hershel took it upon himself to answer for Rick, who'd remained staunchly silent throughout the entire reunion. "Lori didn't survive."

"Neither did T-Dog." Maggie's voice was hoarse, crowded with anger and grief.

Looking at her there, as she stood surveying us all, I thought back to a night this past winter, maybe in February. We'd been holed up in a house not too far from the quarry, and the weight of memory was, at the time, growing too heavy for Andrea and I. Michonne had taken first watch, and so was asleep during mine, but Andrea had woken up and started talking. About Amy, who was buried nearby; about our days at the farm, which seemed further away. Back then, I'd reached across the wide expanse of grief and had squeezed her hand, all the form of comfort I could offer. But right now, I wasn't sure what I could do. It surprised me, but I was _angry_ at her. Angry that she hadn't listened back at Woodbury, angry that she'd chosen him over us; angry that I'd sat in that closet and she hadn't cared enough to go looking for me, or even ask where I was. And now I was angry that she was here, in our space, reminding us of everything we'd lost.

She approached Carl and Rick with unfinished condolences, but neither was receptive, so in true Andrean fashion, she changed the subject. "You all live here?"

"Here and the cellblock," Glenn replied.

"There?" she asked, pointing towards the gate. Glenn nodded silently. "Well, can I go in?" At her words, Daryl tensed, turned slightly so that he was ready to move if need be, but Rick got there first.

He stopped her with a not-ungentle hand, easing her back and away from our space. "I won't allow that."

"I'm not an enemy, Rick," she protested.

He levelled his steely, unsteady glance at her. "We had that field and courtyard until your boyfriend tore down the fence with a truck and shot us up."

"He said you fired first," she said, slowly.

"Yeah, he says a lot of things," I interjected bitterly, and she turned to me with a softened expression. "He told you 'no locks,' didn't he?"

He had; he'd promised her. He'd promised her that he'd look after me like a father would, that I would be taken to kind, caring people who would nurse me back to health. And then he'd locked me in that closet and pumped me for information every day.

Andrea looked confused for a moment, and then managed to cast her mind back to that last day in our Woodbury apartment, when I'd lost myself completely and the Governor had 'handled' it. "Philip said he was doing that for your own safety — you were unbalanced, Riley."

"She ain't," Daryl growled. "D'you know he beat the shit out of her in there?"

I'll give her this: she looked genuinely aghast at this news, and I watched her eyes rove up and down my form, taking stock of the stitches at my hairline, the bruises on my forearms and cheeks — the yellowing stain I'd recently discovered at my collarbone. Not all of these injuries were down to the Governor's beating, that's for sure, but all of them were the direct result of my interactions with him thus far. Andrea tried to form the words, but I could tell they were just going to be more weak-ass excuses, and I said as much.

"No, Riley, if I had've known…"

"You didn't come to check on me, though, did you?" I spat. "He interrogated me every day about Rick and the group. He was plotting this a long time before we ended up in that arena."

"He said — "

"Let me guess" — I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees; Daryl shifted to accommodate my movement — "he said that all that out there was supposed to be a conversation, a truce? That he was going to try and talk to us? And that we flipped our shit and fired first?"

She nodded. "He's lying," Rick hissed.

"He killed an inmate who survived in here." As usual, Hershel remained calm, even-keeled, predictable. Comforting.

"We liked _him_ ," Daryl added. "He was one of us."

It was Axel to whom they were referring. A small group of real prison inmates had survived in the kitchen since the outbreak — one of them had died at Woodbury, the kind man who had offered me water when I first emerged from the closet. And Axel had died by a sniper's bullet, around the same time the Governor had arrived to chat with us.

"I didn't know anything about that." Andrea's voice was just a few decibels above a whisper. "As soon as I found out, I came." She turned to look at Maggie and Glenn. "I didn't even know you were in Woodbury until after the shoot-out."

"That was days ago," Glenn pointed out.

"I told you, I came as soon as I could." Both were stony-faced in response, and she turned again, whirling around to view the aggressive semi-circle of inmates that had gathered around her. Andrea's eyes raced from my face to Michonne's. "What have you told them?" she demanded. Michonne said she'd told them nothing.

As for me — "Just the important stuff."

"I don't get it," Andrea kept turning, trying to make eye contact with everyone, likely in search of an ally. "I left Atlanta with you people and now I'm the odd man out?"

"He almost killed Michonne," Glenn argued. "And he would've killed us."

"With his finger on the trigger!" Andrea pointed to Merle. "Isn't he the one who kidnapped you? Who beat you?" When no one responded, she just sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, I cannot excuse or explain what Philip has done. But I am here trying to bring us together. We have to work this out."

"There's nothing to work out." Rick's decision was swift, terse. "We're going to kill him. I don't know how or when, but we will."

It wasn't a surprise; hadn't it always been heading that way? We couldn't live at the prison with the Governor alive and well just down the road; and I really didn't think we could live without the prison. I'd only been there one night, and that was reduced, tense circumstances, and already I perceived the incredible protection those walls gave us — and the ability to close our cells against potential walkers was a significant bonus. No, it wasn't much to look at. It didn't have the polished charm of Woodbury, and I could tell that Andrea was weighing that against us now, as we huddled around her in this grey, concrete space. But it didn't matter. Everyone I wanted to be with was here, in this room — plus Merle.

Even so, Rick's words chilled me, and seemed to plunge us into a new way of living. That was the cost now, though, wasn't it? We'd tried to live a better way, a calmer, more peaceable existence — but the outside threat of Randall's group and the inner threat posed by Shane's actions had taken that away. Made it impossible. If we wanted this prison, this safe home, then we needed to fight for it. It was just math.

"We can settle this," Andrea pleaded. "There is room at Woodbury for all of you."

I bit back a retort, thinking about my tiny, hot closet and the way I'd slipped into something scarily close to madness after the beating, when I'd talked and talked to no one about everything. My hands curled into fists that I had no intention of using, but it made me feel more effectual to do so.

"You know better than that," Merle sniggered. "Just like Riley there." Daryl's hand twitched near my knee; if he'd been another kind of man, he'd have touched it, offering a sort of preemptive comfort. But he wasn't. And that was fine, for now.

"What makes you think this man wants to negotiate?" Hershel asked. "Did he say that?"

Andrea looked down at her feet. "No."

"Then why did you come here?" Rick sighed.

"Because he's gearing up for war," Andrea replied sharply. "The people are terrified. They see you as killers. They're training to attack."

"Tell you what," Daryl growled by my side. "Next time you see Philip, you tell him I'm gonna take his other eye." I released my fists, touched three fingers to Daryl's knee, and this time, he didn't move away. It wasn't just for me, what he'd said, but in what was likely a maladaptive way, it moved me.

"We've taken too much shit for too long," Glenn added. "He wants a war? He's got one."

And that's how quickly the stakes can change: in the blink of eye, beating deep in the heart of a collective decision. We were headed for war; no more petty skirmishes. If this place was worth it, and I truly believed it was, then we had to act, and fast. But there was something still of the diplomat in me, something that shied away from this threat of aggression. Was there any capacity for peaceful resolution?

Woodbury had the numbers, even if those numbers didn't necessarily the skill. We were more experienced, this was true, but when it came down to it, brute force might simply overwhelm our skill. We didn't have the ammunition, we barely had enough food to keep us going for another confrontation in the yard, let alone a full-scale war or siege situation.

And yet, yet…a baby slept upstairs, and a little boy too small for the gun he held and the grief he carried stood across the room from me. What little stores we did have were ranged neatly here in the cafeteria, and already I had started to think of that grubby, thin mattress I'd crashed on the night before as _my bed_. It had been a thrill to fall asleep to the snores of others last night, even Merle. I tried to imagine waking up on a morning when the risk of war wasn't hanging over my head: making breakfast, going for a run, gardening out in the field, rather than counting walkers; Judith might play in that field one day, and maybe other kids, too. We could build something real here, something important, but not under this constant threat.

"Rick," Andrea tried to steady her voice for this next part. "If you don't sit down and try to work this out, I don't know what's gonna happen. He has a whole town." She turned to face us all one more time, turning on her heel to speak to all of us. "Look at you. You've lost so much already. You can't stand alone anymore."

It was her usual tactic; it was _his_ usual tactic. Talk circles, say it pretty, appeal to your audience, reel 'em in. It was a politician's spiel, but we were soldiers. We were cut from a different cloth. "You want to make this right, get us inside," Rick said, leaning closer.

She shook her head. "Then we got nothing to talk about," he shrugged, striding away, leaving her stranded, holding nothing but excuses about innocent people and a stunned expression on her face.

* * *

I followed Andrea and Michonne out to the prison yard, offering a quick, noncommittal explanation in response to Daryl's questioning look. I had no weapon on me besides my knife, but that was okay. It was okay, because the fight I felt I was about to be engaged in wouldn't benefit from a gun or a spear or a crossbow bolt. This was going to be a war of words, and I was more than amply prepared.

"You poisoned them." Andrea's tone was accusatory, directed at both Michonne and myself.

But we hadn't; not really. Michonne had done most of the talking, and I'd filled Rick in on the Governor's interrogation as he'd carried me through the woods a few days before. The closet and the arena, not to mention the attack that had happened in our front yard — all that had done far more to bring Rick and the others to their current state of opinion. The Cliff Notes version we offered had paled in comparison. Michonne told her as much now: "We just told them the truth."

Abruptly, Andrea turned on her heel. "I didn't choose him over you two. I wanted a life. Once we entered Woodbury, Michonne, you became hostile. And Riley, you were so unpredictable."

"That's 'cause we could see it," Mich snapped.

"See what?"

"That you were under his spell from the second you laid eyes on him." Despite myself, I blushed, but even I knew it was true. I suspected that a large part of Andrea's loyalty and enthusiasm here was due to her obvious attraction to the Governor, and had been from their first meeting. Who was I to talk, though? Andrea angrily denied the charge, to little avail — "And you still are," Michonne spat.

"No," Andrea insisted. "I am there because those people need me."

"And what about us, Andrea?" I asked, forcefully.

"I'm trying to save you all, too," she replied earnestly.

Michonne scoffed. "I did _not_ realize the messiah complex was contagious."

"Go to hell, Michonne." Andrea started heading for the main gate, but we were not done. At least, not according to Michonne.

"He sent Merle to kill me."

Andrea froze, boots scraping on the asphalt as she ground to a halt. "Would've sent him to kill you too, if you had come with me," Mich continued coldly. "But you didn't, did you? You chose a warm bed over a friend. That's why I went back to Woodbury. Exposed him for what he is. I knew that it would hurt you."

Guilt that didn't genuinely belong to me hit me like a wave as Andrea turned to us, and the long winter months of friendship, of learning, of interdependence and love — they dissipated. Dust in the air; memory swirling up and away, lost in the discordant auditory mire of birdsong and the moans of the dead. It didn't matter anymore, didn't matter. We'd chosen sides, and we were here for good. Michonne offered a smirk that was half triumphant, half sad, and walked slowly away, leaving Andrea and I standing in an awkward, heartbroken silence out there in the yard.

She heaved a sob. "I didn't know…about the closet, Riley. If I had…I think he honestly was just trying to help you…" Andrea gave me a pleading stare, but I had no absolution to offer.

"I had anxiety all winter long," I murmured, focusing my gaze out into the field, where the hum of a score of walkers swelled. "Michonne used to help me breathe, count out the breaths for me. When I had one in the woods a few days ago, Daryl spent the next few hours checking in on me, looking for signs. He even rubbed my arms until I calmed down, and you know what he's like about touching." I kicked idly at a crack in the ground. "Neither of them locked me in a closet and then beat the crap out of me. Wonder why that is?"

* * *

We gave her a car to leave in. She'd walked in from Woodbury, leading a jawless, armless walker ahead of her. I stood next to Daryl in the yard as she headed out, but I really shouldn't have been out there. I had no long-range weapon on me, and I was still torn between anger and grief that everything had turned out this way.

He paced in a tight pattern beside me, examining the scene before him with not a little resentment and suspicion. He hadn't asked me anything about what had taken place out in the yard when I'd returned, eyes shining with tears I was determined not to shed. We'd simply sat quietly together in the cafeteria until Andrea had announced it was time for her to be heading back.

"Well," she said now, one foot already in the vehicle, giving us one last wide scan as she prepared to return to the Governor, likely to deliver the announcement that we did not intend to submit quietly. "Take care."

"Andrea." Rick handed her a switchblade and a handgun through the open window of the vehicle, the weapons she'd brought with her to navigate the risky trip through the forest. "Be careful," he said, quietly.

She looked up at him, her face etched with regret. "You too."

Off she drove, her best wishes — or a cool threat, depending on how you looked at it — hanging in the air behind her.

And I let myself cry.

I cried for hours, back in the privacy of the warden's office, and this time, Daryl let me be; I was grateful. I cried until the sun set, until the clinking of dishes from the cafeteria had faded and a few cell doors had shut. I emerged to a scene of surprising domesticity: Beth and Carol were sitting together near a camp-light on the floor; Rick was rocking his daughter to sleep; here and there the others had found places to sit or stand, and the quiet that pervaded the space was for once not shocked, not frightened — it was resigned, and there was some power in that.

Daryl was leaning against the wall in between two cells, next to Hershel; Michonne was perched on an overturned bucket nearby. I chose her this time, just because we'd been through the same thing today and because I was wary of overstaying my welcome in his physical presence. I didn't want him to resent me, not when we could be dead in a few days.

"Hey," she murmured, as I eased myself down to the floor, leaning back against the cool expanse of concrete. "Where've you been?" I just shook my head, because it didn't matter. I was done, that was all she needed to know.

" _They hung a sign up in our town / If you live it up, you won't live it down_." Beth's voice unfurled like smoke in the dim light, and I smiled to hear it. It had been such a long time.

 _So she left Monte Rio, son,_

 _Just like a bullet leaves a gun,_

 _With charcoal eyes and Monroe hips,_

 _She went and took the California trip,_

 _Well, the moon was gold and her hair like wind,_

 _Said don't look back now, just come on, Jim,_

 _You gotta hold on, hold on, you gotta hold on._

 _Take my hand, I'm standing right here, you gotta hold on._

 _Well, he gave her a dime-store watch,_

 _And a ring made from a spoon._

 _Everyone's looking for someone to blame._

 _If you share my bed,_

 _You share my name._

I blinked into the darkness as her voice blended with the memory of Chloe's, which had been a little purer, a little higher. I'd been to a couple of her performances, and always left with tearstained cheeks and a proud grin. She'd sung Van Morrison to me moments before she'd taken her own life, and I hoped Beth didn't know any. I couldn't bear to hear it from anyone else. Couldn't bear it.

Heartbreak felt soft, if that was possible, as though my whole body had the temerity of an eggshell. Michonne's presence beside me was reassuring, a constant justification that I had every right to be angry with Andrea; but there in the quiet reception of Beth's voice, I lost my nerve one more time, and I choked on the sobs I was so damn tired of tasting. We'd chosen, together, I reminded myself. I was a part of this, and I couldn't afford to waste any time quibbling over whether or not it was the right thing to do. All I could be sure of was that it was what we were doing, and the sight of Andrea's defeated expression in the prison yard, the sound of her crying behind me, and the aching rawness of my hours of sobbing in the office — none of that could sway me, though it pained me no end.

 _When there's nothing left to keep you here,_

 _When you're falling behind in this big blue world,_

 _You gotta hold on,_

 _Hold on,_

 _Gotta hold on,_

 _Take my hand,_

 _I'm standing right here…_

* * *

"Hold On" (1999) by Tom Waits


	19. Arrow On The Doorpost

_**Chapter XIX: Arrow On The Doorpost**_

At first, the days passed slowly. Rick left early the next morning for a run to King County, his old hometown, where he hoped to clear out the weapons locker at the police station he'd once worked at. Michonne and Carl went with him. I spent the day getting acquainted with a Remington 870 Police Magnum. I didn't have a whole lot of experience with long-guns, but Maggie did, and she offered me plenty of pointers as I attempted to get comfortable with it.

"I like the knife better," I huffed, readjusting the gun against my shoulder and wishing for the smooth fluidity of my smaller weapon.

"Yeah, but with that, you've got to be right up in their business to do any damage," Glenn observed, and I just rolled my eyes, and he laughed, a sound that caught us all unawares. Maggie, Beth, and I dissolved into peals of inane laughter that really had nothing to do with the fact that Glenn had literally just tried to describe the functionality of a knife to me, or that I'd made such a childish, old-world response.

It was just nice to be together.

The meeting with Andrea hadn't gone all that well, and we were all fully aware that Rick was now preparing for an actual war. Despite that, we'd managed to slip back into the old camaraderie, into familiar patterns of interaction that made the days seem brighter. We'd all changed, but together, we were still an effective, decisive group, capable of working together towards the same goal. And that would come in handy over the next few days, I was sure of it.

"What was it like?" Maggie handed me a paper cup of water and rested a few steps below me on the staircase; we'd decided to come back in after a few hours of training. "The winter, I mean. With Andrea and Michonne."

I glanced around; mostly everyone was gathered in the cafeteria, prepping the weapons and ammunition we did already possess; Merle was napping, snoring loudly in his cell; and Beth was rocking Judith to sleep, singing something softly as she did. "It was fine." I downed the water. "Really good sometimes, hard most of the time, but nothing drastic."

"Did you ever go back to the farm?"

 _In dreams mostly_ , I wanted to say. I had seen it every night as I lay down my head, in between watch shifts. The gold and the green of Hershel's fields; the sound of Daryl's breathing across the tent; the profound and utter sweetness of not being alone. When things had started to crack, there at the end, and we began to splinter along the fault lines of our respective values — even then I'd relished it, grateful for the debate and the conversations, and content in the hope that we could work it all out. I dreamt of that, then, on the cold winter ground; in unfamiliar beds; curled up between blankets that had always belonged to someone else.

But no. I'd never gone back to survey the damage, the smouldering pile of everything I'd hoped for. "I went to the highway," I said, avoiding Maggie's eyes. "Had to convince Mich, but she went. No one was there, and then we had to start moving. You?"

"No," she sighed. "We just started moving, too. We just assumed you and Andrea…" Here she let her words trail off into awkwardness, so I reached out an understanding hand to her shoulder.

"I would've too." I smiled reassuringly at her. That was all in the past. Decades ago, really.

We sat in that attitude for a while together, talking about some of the places we'd stayed in. She laughed at the longing tone I employed when mentioning the trampoline park I'd so hoped to call home. "I mean, really — it was ideal."

"Oh, for sure," Maggie snickered. "All that space for three people. Did it have a foam pit?"

"Eight of them!" I crowed. "And an indoor zip-line. Plus, there were tons of vending machines."

"You know," she added, stretching out her legs in front of her, obviously a little stiff from being in one position for too long. "I think Beth went there once for a birthday party. A couple of years ago now. I had to drop her off."

"Yeah, well, my life would've been like one long birthday party if we had've stayed there." It wouldn't have been, not at all. The place _was_ too big for three people to secure and the vending machines had already been raided. Michonne was right to put her foot down about only staying one night, but the problem back then had been that everything was just one night. I hadn't known what we were moving towards out there; we were just stuck in the constant cycle of moving on.

"And Woodbury?"

I swallowed, thought carefully about my next words. I was wary of humanizing the place too much, or, really, demonizing it too much. Better if it was neutral, I decided — merely a stage for the Governor, rather than the actual source of conflict itself. The hope that we still might negotiate, if not with Philip himself then with the community, that was still simmering brightly in some corner of my mind. "At first, it seemed like everything we'd wanted. Walls, food, medicine, a system…it was great. And it was nice to…to have a break from 'surviving,' you know?"

Beth, with baby Judith in her arms, stepped lightly out of the cell to hear better as I continued. "We got up in the mornings and we had proper, sit-down breakfasts — around an actual table. Hell, I had a job. But…" And here I lost myself. I looked around at the grey concrete surrounding us, the place designed to be oppressive, to be the utter antithesis of "home." All I could think was how happy I felt to be _here_ ; how oppressed I had felt in Woodbury. "Those walls…they were just wood and sheet metal. The people inside, it was like…it was like they didn't fully understand what was out there, the walkers and everything. They got lulled into a sense of safety because they couldn't see what was going on, and when they did see the walkers, the Governor had their teeth and hands removed, and he'd just parade them around so that everybody in town could feel superior, taken care of.

"They're like…sheep, placated and well-fed, so they don't look too closely at the hand that's feeding them. But you and I did, and Glenn and Merle and Daryl — all of us now. And he's…" I struggled to find the words, realizing that the others had gathered closer to listen, even Merle. "I've never encountered someone like that before," I finished lamely. "Not even the soldiers at the college were like that. They were more blatant about what they were. He's deluded even himself, I think."

It wasn't very profound or insightful; it didn't tell them everything they needed to know vis-a-vis numbers and resources and fighting capabilities. It probably wasn't even a very useful speech, but I hoped that it had planted a seed in their minds: a little shoot of doubt and on-second-thought, as we remembered that these were just people like us over there in Woodbury — people we had been not so very long ago. They were afraid and ignorant; and like us, they'd chosen someone to follow. The only difference was that we'd gotten lucky in that department, and they'd gotten the Governor.

The sunlight was warm on my face when I finally stepped outside, after making some quiet excuse to Maggie about needing air. I'd left them all back in there, thinking about what I'd said, and I needed to be free of it, as though the taint of my time in Woodbury could cling to me like a bad smell.

"Smoke?" I turned at the sound of Merle's voice, and smiled at the welcome sight of the proffered cigarette.

"Thanks."

We sat together on the front steps, looking out towards the prison yard, and beyond, to the walker-infested field. "Isn't it funny," I said, tapping off a bit of loose ash, "that like, a year ago, anybody would've been miserable to find themselves living here, and now it's a home we're willing to fight for?"

"Mm-hmm." Merle nodded, lighting up his own smoke. "Prison ain't no joke, baby girl. No joke at all."

"Neither was Woodbury." I stole a glance over at him; Merle didn't react physically to my jibe at his erstwhile sanctuary, but I suspected it would earn me some sort of remark. Come to think of it now, the very fact that a person like Merle could be successful within its confines should have been one of our very first warnings about Woodbury.

Merle just laughed, a short bark. "Yeah, true enough, true enough."

Smoking with Merle was different from smoking with his brother. Daryl and I so often slipped easily into a companionable silence, both comfortable in the knowledge that we didn't have to make observations, didn't have to keep the other entertained. We were all right together, just the two of us and one cigarette. With Merle, however, I still felt that lingering tension, as I recalled everything he'd put us through, everything he had stood for. I didn't like him, and never would, but I was smart enough to realize that his presence could make all the difference for our success in the coming conflict.

"My brother likes you," he said quietly, grounding his half-finished cigarette to nothing beneath his boot.

"What?"

He smiled over at me, and I felt my cheeks begin to grow warm. "I don't know if he's gonna be jumping your bones anytime soon, baby girl, but he sure as hell likes you. Anybody else, he woulda turned 'em straight down if they'd tried to come with us back there in the woods." He coughed, and looked back out at the yard. "He was never much one for a bunch of girls hanging around, kept to himself. Had me worried a couple of times, you catch my drift?" He winked, and I looked away.

"But he seems to like having you around, which is a big fucking deal for him, let me tell you. I call that personal growth. Although" — and here he shot me that signature licentious smirk — "I'm gonna assume you were hoping for personal growth of a more _personal_ nature on his part, am I right, dar — "

The rumble of a vehicle distracted us both, and we turned to see the same brown car we'd loaned Andrea the day before hurtling up the main track towards the prison. It could be a good sign, I thought, as I hurried back inside the prison to alert the others. It could be a good sign, it could be a good sign, a good sign, a good sign….

* * *

In a manner of speaking, it _was_ a good sign. Andrea had come with a temporary suspension of aggression in mind — not quite a truce, but headed there. We heard her out in the dim light of the cafeteria, as she explained that she'd discussed yesterday's journey with the Governor in the hopes of coming to some sort of peaceful resolution to our problems. "He's willing to sit down with Rick to negotiate," she said earnestly, looking around at all of us with a broad smile. "I really think we can work this out."

I exchanged a doubtful look with Glenn, who then leaned forward on the circular table around which sat Andrea, Hershel, Carol, and Maggie. Beth was doing the baby's laundry in her cell, and Daryl, Merle and I had chosen a table further away from the discussion. "Andrea, he shot the shit out of us. He killed one of our people. He doesn't want to sit down and negotiate; he just wants a shorter distance to aim."

Oh, he was good.

Andrea shook her head so forcefully her ponytail threatened to disengage. "No, Glenn. I'm serious. He wants to sit down, talk about this, draw up territories, all of that. He says there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to live peacefully and quietly near each other, no reason at all."

She was embellishing, I could tell. Polishing up his original comments, attempting to make the whole situation much brighter than it had sounded in Woodbury, I'm sure. But I didn't call her out on it, not this time. "What are we talking about here?" Hershel asked, taking a sip of coffee. "What would this look like?"

Andrea nearly went limp with relief at this positive development, and turned to Hershel gratefully. "We'd meet at a neutral location, just a few from each group. I know the Governor would like me there, as well as his assistant. A couple of you could come with Rick. There's an old feed store about halfway between Woodbury and the prison…I think it's out on Logan Road."

The proposal started to take shape from there. I had to admit: it did sound promising, but I knew the Governor. Nothing was this simple, and he was not about to admit defeat this easily. And a truce, in this climate, after everything that had already taken place, that was tantamount to defeat. But I let her talk, let her say her piece, just feeling the tension rise and coil within my veins as she discussed timings and priorities and topics. It seemed unlikely that Rick would ever be calm enough to sit down across from the Governor and map out territories together.

He'd been unstable since Lori's death, which was completely understandable. The day that Daryl, Merle, and I had returned and the Governor had attacked, he'd spent most of his time wandering around outside the fence in search of Lori. It unnerved me to see him so rattled; the concept of Rick Grimes being unstable was possibly the most frightening thing I'd encountered since the world had fallen apart. He'd seemed to be getting better, though, and the fact that he'd organized this run today with Michonne and his son went quite a ways in signalling some sort of progress.

How receptive could be possibly be to this, though?

"When?" Maggie asked.

"We were thinking in two days," Andrea replied evenly. "Give us both a chance to come up with a list of requirements and ideas." Around the room, heads were beginning to nod cautiously, though I think we were all tentative to agree too readily to something without Rick there. We couldn't not take this opportunity, though, could we?

Glenn managed to muster a civil enough tone to ask Andrea to give us a few moments to discuss the idea. She quietly left to go out into the yard for some air, and we got down to business. "What do we think?" Carol asked, looking around at all of us. "What should we do?"

Merle yawned, as though this all bored him. "Governor's not one for negotiating, not in my experience."

"But is that because he's never had to?" I asked sharply. "Maybe he's not yet encountered a group that poses a substantial enough of a threat to consider negotiating with them. If he relies primarily on survivors wandering in, he wouldn't have to compromise with them. He's always had the upper hand so far, we can assume."

"Is that worth the risk, though?" asked Maggie. "What if Merle's right, and he just shoots our people as soon as they drive in?"

Back and forth we went, over and over again, balancing the odds of our deaths with the possibility for resolution. Here's the thing, though: I don't really think any of us thought there was a possibility for resolution with the Governor. He had to be out of the way. The end goal — and I brought this point up — was that we needed to prepare ourselves to negotiate with the community. "He's an asshole," I pointed out, "and we probably won't be able to get anywhere with him, and I don't want to anyway. But we may need those people, that community."

"Are you talking about an assassination, darling?" Merle laughed. "Daryl, boy, you've got one ballsy bitch on your hands." He clapped his silent brother on the back. For my part, I let the insult slide, and I guess Daryl did, too. Out in the woods, he'd always been quite prompt to correct the language that Merle employed to describe me, or the insinuations he made about our relationship. This right here was a double-whammy, and Daryl didn't say a word.

"I don't know," I said slowly, gauging the temperature of the room. "I just know that our issue is with him, not the people. Right?"

The others nodded in a general consensus of assent. "Okay, then," Glenn said. "We'll tentatively agree to a sit-down. But if Rick comes back and says no, then what?"

"Then we either decide to send someone else or we listen to his plan." Hershel looked tired as he said this. He'd aged so much since the farm, and the loss of his leg had done nothing to improve his morale. If we could solve this as peacefully as possible, it would mean a hell of a lot of stress off his shoulders in particular.

I poked my head out the main door to invite Andrea back inside. She stood on the stairs, with us and yet not, to hear our decision. "That's wonderful news, guys," she said, thrilled, ducking down to hug Carol and Maggie. "I'm so glad. You won't regret it; I promise. Let me just draw you a map to the feed store before I go…"

Deciding not to stay for any goodbyes, I made my way back to my cell on the upper level of the block. It was a few doors down from Daryl, and I'd been able to straighten it up slightly and organize a few piles of the clothes Maggie and Carol had shared with me. I even had a couple of books that Hershel had scavenged during the winter and generously offered to let me borrow. The space still had a determinedly grim aspect, but after this was all over, we'd be able to start to think about things like colourful blankets, painted walls, even pictures and posters — in short, we'd be able to start making this place more like a real home.

I spent the next few hours reading a battered copy of a rather dull, rather thick World War II textbook, skimming over huge swathes of history in an effort to get to the details of each battle. It fascinated me that I was now in the midst of some genuine history-making for our world, too. We were ranging along battle lines, organizing sit-downs, gathering supplies and reconnaissance and statistics. If we survived it, we'd be able to talk about it one day to other generations. I leaned back in my bed, leaving the heavy book open on my chest, and tried to imagine telling little Judith one day about the afternoon we'd planned a negotiation with…

 _Slam!_

"Jesus Christ!" I woke with a yell into the dark, but it was a sleeper's scream, and came out as nothing more than a hoarse exclamation. It was enough to bring Daryl to my door, knife glinting in the moonlight.

"You good?" he growled.

I rubbed at my eyes with one hand, fingers playing blindly on the floor until they brushed my electric camp-light. I flicked it on, and met his gaze sleepily. "Sorry, I fell asleep and I think my book hit the floor. Freaked me out."

As a warm glow flooded my cell, I struggled to sit up and face him. He was breathing heavily, and his hair was messier than usual. Daryl had obviously been fast asleep, and I felt bad for waking him in such a way, at such a time. "I'm fine. I'm really sorry about that."

"'S'okay," he mumbled, looking down at his feet, which I noticed were bare. I had never seen him without his boots before. It seemed such an intimate state for him to be in, considering how closed-off he tended to be around everyone. For Daryl, it was akin to catching him in pyjamas, or even —

No, we weren't going to think about that.

"Is Rick back?" I yawned, realizing I'd been asleep for a long time. It was probably inching closer to midnight. Damn it. I'd be awake all night now.

Daryl shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, unsure of where to go, I realized. Mimicking his gesture from the other day, I shifted my legs on the bed, scooted over closer to the wall to make room. It was an invitation, and I saw one of his legs twitch forward, but then he stood more firmly in the doorway. Perhaps Judith's presence had made him more comfortable with me sitting on his bed, or maybe he was hesitant now because it was nighttime. Either way, he seemed now more resolutely comfortable with the length of the cell between us, and I tried not to take it personally.

"Yeah. They got back just before dark," he replied, stowing his knife and beginning to chew on his thumb again, obviously a nervous gesture. "They got enough."

"Good." My stomach rumbled audibly and I realized I'd missed getting something for dinner, but given the current state of affairs, with our food supplies running scarily low, I probably shouldn't have complained.

"Rick wants you to go with us, to meet with the Governor." I looked up; Daryl was deadly serious, yet there was something in his eyes that told me he didn't agree with Rick's decision.

Stifling a curious mixture of indignation and disappointment, I asked: "Why? Who else is going?"

He hesitated before answering, and not for the first time, I wished I could read Daryl Dixon's mind. It was a complex thing, and even being a good study in facial expressions could never really guarantee an accurate reading of what was going on within. There in the dark, he seemed to be suspended between two actions, just as he had been moments before: to sit or not to sit; to tell or not to tell.

"Rick and Hershel and me," he replied, answering my second question first, denying my initial one.

But I wasn't going to let him get away that easily. "Why does he want me?"

I genuinely couldn't figure it out. Daryl's presence made sense: he was Rick's muscle, a physical manifestation of the martial threat we could pose; Hershel was our voice of reason, someone logical and level-headed, perhaps to keep Rick in check during the negotiatory proceedings. Why me, though? Was a fourth person even necessary?

Daryl just shrugged. "Just said he wanted you to come."

It wasn't that simple. Things never were, these days. If Rick wanted me to tag along, it was _because_ of something. There was a "why" there far more substantial than a whim. "You don't want me to go?"

That particular line of inquiry changed him. He looked up at me, eyes bright and jaw set. Why did he constantly look ready for a fight? Why was there always something combative burning in his expression? I didn't want to argue, not with him, not tonight, but I felt a small kind of rebellion fluttering in my stomach; I wanted to call him out on his obvious reticence. _He wants to be here_ , I thought. He'd come to check on me out of instinct, but he had stayed for another reason. I wanted him to confront that right now, even if it meant we'd fight to get to the point. _Admit it._

"You're still hurt." He gestured idly to my injuries.

Damn it. That was good.

And maybe it was true. Maybe he genuinely thought I should still be out of commission. When I'd gone with him in the woods, emotions had been running high and I'd been dealing only with a bad ankle and extensive bruising. Now, though, I had a cut on my forehead, stitches in my leg, and a weakened, contused shoulder, all from the attack on the prison.

As I brushed off his concern with some general reassurances, I felt embarrassment creeping up on me, warming my cheeks. What had I expected? That he would sweep me up into his arms, tell me he didn't want me to go because he was in love with me and couldn't bear to see me put at risk? I felt stupid, immature, and impossibly young. Daryl would never be the type to do anything remotely resembling that, and even if he did, he wouldn't be Daryl, not really. I was attracted to him partially because he unknowingly bucked all potentially romantic conventions.

Still, he'd expressed some concern about my wellbeing, and that was moving us closer to where we'd been at the farm. It frustrated me that back then, he'd been growing so comfortable in my presence that we'd actually functionally shared a tent, that he'd been fine falling asleep just a few feet away from me, that we'd spend hours together each day without grating on each other.

He was done, though, now, I could tell. I'd touched a nerve, and he awkwardly said goodnight and padded back down the catwalk to his own cell. Collapsing back onto my pillow, I resolved to talk to Rick in the morning, figure out why exactly he wanted me on the trip.

"Hey." Daryl was back, quietly in the doorway. I sat up, and his words tumbled out in a rush: "Carol left some food for you downstairs."

* * *

The day of the sit-down dawned cool and grey. I dressed in the quiet of my cell, choosing a short-sleeved blue shirt that dipped down low enough to feature my collarbone bruise in full effect. I gingerly smoothed my hair back into a ponytail, feeling a drop of blood ooze from the stitches in response to my tugging. It stung, but I let it be. More bruises stained my arms, and here and there, through the ripped jeans I slipped on, green and yellowing patches of healing skin showed through. The more substantial cut on the inside of my thigh wasn't featured, but I wasn't about to wear a pair of hot pants just to make Rick's point.

There were two reasons Rick wanted me along on the trip. The first was more complimentary, and I decided I would dwell on that longer than the other. "You're smart, Riley," he'd explained when I'd questioned him yesterday morning. "You understand people, and I want you there in case I can't do it."

"Why — "

"Because I'm still not…" He looked down at his feet. "I'm just preparing. You've dealt with him before. Would you feel comfortable stepping in if I needed you to?"

I'd thought carefully before answering. Could I handle it? Sitting across from that bastard, remembering what he'd done to me, knowing what he'd done to Daryl and Maggie and Glenn, that he'd tried to kill all of us and had succeeded in killing Oscar and Axel? Could I keep my cool long enough to lay out our demands and talk him down from his previous intentions? "Rick, I…I don't…I mean, what about Hershel? Wouldn't he be better suited to this?"

Rick smiled then. "Hershel gave me the idea. He told me what you said, about working with the community even if we can't work with the Governor. He said that's the right way to be thinking about this, and I agree."

Glowing with pride and appreciation, I scarcely heard the next element of Rick's plan. "And, to be honest, having the girl he just beat the shit out of standing next to me, well — that might make anybody he brings along think twice about his methods."

I stared at him, and he bit his lip nervously. I knew he was worried about me taking that the wrong way, but even I could see a little glimmer of logic in it. The aggressors the Governor had brought with him to our gates thought they were attacking terrorists; but an unarmed twenty-two year old girl in a closet? That was a whole different story. If nothing else, I could stand there as a testament to what he was capable of in the dark. "So you're saying," I replied slowly, after a few minutes' consideration, "that I'm basically there to be a model."

He blinked, and I could see him trying to work out if I was joking or about to slap him for his rudeness. I smiled, reached out a gentle hand to his arm, and he grinned broadly, the first real positive expression I'd seen on his face since before the farm, before our world broke for the second time.

"Great," he said now, looking me up and down. "Good job." He was packing up the SUV with a few weapons; Hershel was sipping at a cup of coffee in the driver's seat. "We'll be leaving in about ten minutes."

I adjusted the Glock 17 in the back of my jeans. The cool plastic was hard to get used to back there, but the knowledge that it was there was strangely comforting. Beth had lent me a sheath for my knife, and so I felt, at the very least, that I could protect myself if need be. The truth was, that despite my bravado and joking with Rick, and the little half-twirl I'd made before him as I showcased my injuries to full effect, I was afraid. Scared, really, of encountering the Governor again, of walking into that barn or standing around outside waiting. I didn't trust him, and worried about what he would do to us. What were the odds, I pondered, leaning against the back of the vehicle, that the four of us would show up and he'd be there with his entire goddamn guard force? What if we pulled up to the feed store and he _wasn't_ there, but was back here at the prison, blowing it to pieces?

I'd shared all of these anxieties with Rick and Hershel last night, and while both conceded that they were indeed possibilities, we still had to go. "If you don't show, and this is for real, he's just going to come back here anyway," Glenn had interjected. "Don't worry, Riley, we'll be as ready as we can."

"Us too," Rick had reassured me. "If something seems like it's going south, we'll be able to get away, or at least take some of them down first. There's just four of us; we'll be able to get home fast."

The acrid scent of cigarette smoke wafted on the morning air, and I looked up at the crunch of broken asphalt to see Daryl heading over to his bike. He'd obviously dressed for the cooler weather, having put on a leather jacket underneath his usual angel-winged biker's vest. He situated his crossbow on the back of his motorcycle, puffing away on his smoke the whole time.

Daryl had avoided me for most of yesterday, even as Rick, Hershel, and I had put our heads together to come up with a plan for the negotiation. I hoped I hadn't spoiled things the night before last, when I'd pried a little too close for comfort to his reasons for not wanting me to come along. Or maybe it had just had something to do with the fact that we'd just been interacting a lot since our reunion, and that the months apart had driven a wedge in the friendship we'd been growing back at the quarry and the farm.

Today, though, would be different, I decided. I'd let him come to me, if he wanted, and stood to head over to the passenger door of the SUV, dusting off the back of my jeans as I did so. "Hey," he said gruffly, stomping out the last remains of the cigarette into the ground. "Wanna ride with me? You don't got to, I just thought…"

His tone was shy, and his face was uncertain. It had been a hell of a long time since I'd been on the back of Daryl's bike though, and I had to bite back a massive grin at this development — actually, it was more of a return, back to how we'd been before the separation. I nodded. "You're gonna be cold, though, in just that." He gestured to the t-shirt, looking away from the bruises as he did.

The more logical decision would've been to decline after that point had been made. We had to set out soon and it would be just as easy for me to ride with the others, keeping the cool, rushing wind off my skin. But I didn't feel like doing the logical thing at the moment, so I raced back into the prison. "Sweater!" I hissed to Maggie, who was counting bullets at one of the cafeteria tables.

"Huh?"

I leaned down on the table. "I need to borrow a sweater, like a zip-up one, you know. Can I? Do you have one?"

She shot me an incredulous look. "It's not a fashion show."

I leaned down onto the table, away from Merle's inquisitive stare nearby. "Daryl, uh…he asked me to ride with him, on the bike, but I'll be cold without…damn it, Maggie, don't make me say it!" I snapped in response to her widening smile. "Do you have one I can borrow?"

Maggie acquiesced with plenty of chuckling and an ill-concealed knowing smile. "I got black to make your bruises stand out," she whispered, handing it over. "Now, be safe and make sure he pays for dinner before you put out."

I left with a muttered "fuck you" that I'm sure Beth heard, judging by the way she jumped before I stomped up the steps. Outside, the SUV was running and Rick was waving me down. "Everything okay?" he asked, watching as I shoved my arms into the sleeves of the sweater and zipped it up.

"Yeah, I was just cold. I'll take it off when we get there," I said. "We're good to go." Daryl was already on the bike and the engine was rumbling. I rested one hand on his left shoulder, pressing down lightly as I swung my leg over the side. It was an old, familiar position to find myself in, and it felt comfortable, except for the fact that it caused a streak of pain from the stitches in my leg, and all I could do was hope they wouldn't open up again. Rick wouldn't be happy — my jeans were black; the blood wouldn't even show up.

I wound my arms around Daryl's waist, and thought back to the hundred and one times I'd done this before. Back before the farm, when we'd been looking for a home after the tragic disappointment of the CDC.

Within absolute seconds of leaving the prison grounds, I was grateful for Maggie's sweater. The previously cool air had a new bite as Daryl's bike swept through it, and once we passed Hershel and Rick, the full force of it consumed us. I shivered despite my covered arms, and tried to steady my stomach in anticipation of what was to come. It would be fine, I thought, reminding myself of the gun and the knife at my waist, the crossbow behind me. We would be fine, and they would be fine. One day, I'd be telling Judith about this, and how this was the day that changed everything.

I just hoped my story would have a happy ending.

Logan Road emerged after about twenty minutes; Daryl and I leaned into the corner, like we had so many times before. "How far from here?" he asked loudly, trying to make himself audible over the whip of the wind around us.

"It'll be the third driveway on the left," I replied. I loosened one hand from his waist to point ahead, where the paved road gave way to the beginning of a long, winding dirt one, marked by a faded, dusty sign. He nodded and signalled to Hershel behind us as we approached.

At one time in recent history, the feed-store was probably bustling, constantly frequented by local farmers — likely Hershel included. I tried to picture dozens of trucks parked in the front, near the three silos, where the grass had started to reclaim the edges of a small lot of crushed gravel. It had operated as a farm, too, Maggie had explained to me yesterday, housing a barn and boasting forty head of cattle.

The motorcycle ground to a halt near the silo closest to the road, and as I was shifting off the back of it, the others pulled in behind us. Looking around, the area seemed quiet. Daryl killed the engine, and tapped me on the shoulder as I opened my mouth to comment on the stillness, holding up a finger to his lips to indicate I should remain silent. Was he worried? The knot of anxiety started twisting in my stomach, and I padded over to Hershel's open window for distraction, comfort, anything. He smiled at me, tired and wan, through the window, and I suddenly had a sweeping tide of lonesomeness for my own father. Maggie and Beth were lucky, I realized, to still have theirs with them.

Rick slid from the passenger seat of the SUV, holding up a hand to Hershel, telling him to wait. To me, though, Rick nodded his head, jerking his chin towards the narrow strip of grass growing between the silo we'd parked near and the main building. Daryl was already primed at the mouth of it, crossbow at the ready. I shimmied out of Maggie's sweater and handed it gently through the window to Hershel.

"Between us," Rick mouthed, tapping me on the arm to get my attention. "Gun."

The Glock felt slippery in my hands, but they weren't sweating at all. I positioned myself behind Daryl, counting the stitched feathers on the back of his vest, watching as his arms poised the weapon in the air. I clicked off the safety on my own, gripped it to aim, and then silently followed Daryl through the shadowy corridor formed by the edge of the two structures. I watched as Daryl aimed and repositioned his crossbow at least six or so times, anticipatory in his jerky movements, as though there were going to be enemies around every corner.

 _But really_ , I thought stupidly, _there could be_.

We reached the end of that corridor fairly quickly, and about fifteen yards ahead, a squat barn stood, paint peeling and purpose long gone. Daryl made a half turn, flashing a few fingers in a simple motion over his shoulder towards Rick and I, pointing out the building. Andrea had mentioned the barn in her negotiations and directions, and it seemed the most likely place for the sit-down to occur, in any event. He caught my eye, jerked his chin towards the two other silos, and then dashed away towards them. Rick and I followed closely, taking care to step over a pile of loose, rusted pipes scattered on the ground. We broke out into a jog when we reached the open area beyond the silos, and it soon became clear that we were skirting around to the other side of that barn structure. As we passed an outbuilding, Daryl stopped suddenly to point down at an immobile walker, its head bashed in. Rick hurried on past to ascertain our security, while Daryl knelt to test the warmth of the blood. He gave me a look that said it was plenty fresh.

We weren't the only ones here, obviously.

Rick and I moved ahead further, quietly inching our way towards the barn. He paused when we were about six or seven feet away from the door, which was suspiciously ajar. He waved his fingers again to catch Daryl's attention, and then pointed towards the barn; Daryl nodded and began to make his way down the side of the building.

The smell, when we'd finally entered, reminded me of the health food store my father had so often dragged me into as a child, in search of the latest miracle grain or the disgusting kids' supplements which tasted nothing like the fruit they allegedly resembled; I'd spent many a Saturday morning dully watching my dad comb through magazine articles at the counter, putting together recipes that were supposedly going to make us live forever. The aroma was lively and woody, as though it rose from the ground itself.

Cagily, we moved through the door, Rick engaging his Python as we did so. After about fifteen steps, which I counted with the trepidation I usually reserved for horror movies, we reached the centre of the space, where rose a wooden platform featuring a kitchen table, two chairs, and a green shelving unit that had likely once been used to feature feed or grains available for sale. I looked around, but couldn't see any sign of the Governor or his men, making me think that perhaps Daryl had been wrong about the walker, or maybe it had been killed by someone else.

But then, from the depths of the shadows at the other end of the barn, there emitted a slight rattling of metal accompanied by several footsteps. Out from the dark he came, that soulless, one-eyed gaze hot upon us as he stepped closer. I swallowed hard against a wave of nausea as he ascended the top of the platform and circled it cautiously, fixing an appraising stare upon Rick. He held up two hands with a smile, a gesture of surrender, but when neither of us reacted, the slight smile melted from his face and he lowered them. "We have a lot to talk about."

"You attacked us," Rick said hoarsely. "Makes things pretty clear."

The Governor shrugged. "I was trying to make things clear. I could've killed you all. I didn't."

Rick looked around the space, eyes glancing back to meet mine. "And here we are." He blinked, and almost as though we'd had it planned the whole time, we both raised our guns in the same stroke, with the same _click_ of engagement. Adrenalin began to flood my veins, but all I focused on was the gun in my hands, aiming for that goddamn eye patch.

To his credit, the Governor didn't even blink. If anything, he looked dismayed, disappointed that we'd been so predictable. "I'm going to remove my weapon," he drawled. "Show that I mean to negotiate in good faith. I'd like you to do the same."

Detecting movement, my eyes flickered over to the far window. Daryl was hovering beneath, the top of his head rising to peer inside. I felt an instantaneous desire to be out there with him, far, far away from this piece of shit in front of me. Why hadn't I stayed out there? Why had I come at all?

"May I?" the Governor asked, gesturing to the leather belt containing his holster. That had been the cause of the metallic clinking preceding his entrance out of the gloom. In response, Rick just shifted his gun slightly, and the Governor removed the entire thing, dropping it off to the side of the platform. "See?" he said, "no trouble." Up went his hands again. "Now you."

If I hadn't been so fucking keyed-up, I would've laughed out loud at Rick's next movement: he simply holstered his gun with an obstinate look in the Governor's direction. _Good_ , I thought gleefully. _Make sure this asshole realizes we aren't here to roll over_.

Hey, I'm all for negotiation, but nobody said we had to have our tails between our legs to do it.

I followed suit, tucking my Glock into the back pocket of my jeans with a smirk. "Suit yourself." The Governor chose the chair closest to him, sitting down lightly, as though he had all the time in the world, as though Rick and I still weren't armed, as though he hadn't just attacked us and done God knows what to Maggie over that table. As if he were still human. He gestured to the seat across from him. "I'd like the girl to leave," he said quietly, as Rick pulled out the chair to sit down. "This is between you and me. The lovely Riley is free to wait outside." He gestured to the door, but I didn't take orders from him, not anymore. I waited.

"Go with Daryl, please." Rick didn't take his eyes off the Governor, but his tone was soft. His statement accomplished a few interesting tasks in one fell swoop: it clearly demonstrated my allegiance to him, rather than good old Phillip; it indicated that there was another of his men waiting outside; and it subtly shifted the sense of power in the room. Rick was the one dispensing orders. Rick had control.

I hurried back the way we had come, breaking out into the sunlight and taking a deep gulp of fresh, cool air once I'd rounded the corner. Had I been holding my breath that entire time, I wondered?

"Hey." A hand rested on my back, and I realized I was bent over, hands on my knees, as though about to keel completely over or vomit — or both. Straightening, I offered Daryl some quiet, disconnected reassurances, avoiding his scanning eyes. "You good?"

How many times in the course of our knowing each other had he asked me that? How many times had I said, "fine" or "yes" in response when really, I was so far from it that it physically hurt? I prized his peace of mind in my account far more than I did my own, and I would've probably giving him the same noncommittal response even if I had a knife sticking out of my chest. So this time, I told a new kind of truth: "No. I just…I don't want to be around him."

The sight of the Governor brought the endless ache back to every nerve ending in my body; the sound of his voice took me back to the closet, to the arena. Took me back to powerlessness and certain death, and I hated it. I would do nearly anything for Rick Grimes, but I wouldn't go back into that barn, even if he asked. I just couldn't.

Daryl's face didn't change, to my surprise, at my uncharacteristically honest reply. He just rubbed his hand lightly over my shoulder, in a gesture that made me want to blush and cry all at the same time. "Then you stay out here," he said gruffly, "with me. Come on." Together, we started walking towards the road in the distance. Judging from Andrea's map, this should be the 14, the secondary highway that lead down towards Woodbury, about twenty minutes away from this point. We paused as Hershel pulled around in the SUV. "He's already in there," Daryl said, stepping up to the open window. "Sat down with Rick."

Hershel looked around; it still seemed fairly quiet, but he obviously hadn't walked here, and I was sure that the Governor wouldn't show up here on his own. "I don't see any other cars," he said slowly.

"It don't feel right." Daryl looked over at me. "Keep it running."

Fear burst like copper in my mouth at the sound of a truck's rumbling engine and the wild crunching of gravel. Daryl smacked his hand down on the hood of the SUV. "Heads up," he said to Hershel, raising his crossbow to rest on his shoulder, aimed towards the vehicle, which was currently tearing its way across the junkyard across the street, where it had obviously been laying in wait. I made to reach around for my Glock but Daryl shoved me behind the front edge of the SUV with a muttered, "Get down" in my ear.

The brakes of the truck squealed and the gravel flew as the truck finally stopped. I peeked around the top curve of the hood at the sound of doors slamming open; familiar faces emerged.

Martinez hopped out first, hitting the ground with that signature smirk; Milton Mamet was in the backseat, and the snide look of dismayed appraisal he gave Daryl suddenly made me remember how much I'd always wanted to hit him. Slowly, I moved to join Daryl, staring down the newcomers in a way that clearly let them know whose side I was on now.

Andrea rounded the corner of the truck with a cautious smile, one which was quickly dashed by Daryl's harsh tone: "What the hell? Why's your boy already in there?"

Perhaps, then, they hadn't been laying in wait. Maybe the Governor had sought to undermine Andrea's whole authority here by showing up early, without his people; trying to scare the shit out of us by skulking around in the shadows without any backup. Andrea looked from Daryl to Martinez uncertainly, incredulity written large and honestly — even she wasn't that good of an actress. The Governor's early arrival had decidedly _not_ been a part of her plans. "He's here?"

"Yup." Daryl didn't look away from Martinez.

Something passed then between her and her companions that I couldn't quite translate: it could have been a look of resignation, resentment, or even conspiracy, I don't know. Whatever it was, she heaved a sigh and strode towards the front door of the feed store, sliding it open. "What's going on?" I heard her ask sharply, but the replies were too far away for us to detect out there in the parking lot.

The last time I'd seen Martinez, he'd been betraying all my previously-formed good opinions of him by standing alongside the Governor in the arena, fully preparing to deliver Daryl and I to our deaths. Suffice it to say, I wasn't exactly thrilled to be reunited. He certainly seemed to recognize me, judging by the smug little smirk playing about his mouth.

Quietly, Hershel suggested that perhaps he should head inside to the barn as well, likely intending to offer Rick some representation. Before I could tell him that was a good idea, however, Milton fucking Mamet (king of the asswipes) cut me off. "The Governor thought it best if he and Rick spoke privately," he interjected primly, before turning back to scribble in a notebook he had propped up on the hood of the truck.

"Who the hell are you?" Daryl asked, not as severely as I would've anticipated. He was genuinely curious, I could tell.

Milton turned, looked him up and down. "Milton Mamet," he replied lightly, as though Daryl and his curiosity were of little consequence to him. He turned back to his notebook, began to write something else or perhaps continue where'd left off. Like I gave a flying shit.

"Great," Daryl said, not a little sarcastically, looking back at me. "He brought his butler." Martinez and I both chuckled at this — more at the expression on Milton's face (an amusing mixture of slight irritation, an unfulfillable desire to equally humiliate, with just a dash of pissy-ness). It was, in a word, glorious to my much-beleaguered and admittedly immature sense of humour.

"I'm his advisor," Milton retorted.

Daryl shot me what I can only describe as a mischievous grin, privy only to the two of us — but I'd never, ever thought I'd have an occasion to apply that particular term to Daryl Dixon. "What kind of advice?"

I bit back on a grin as Milton sanctimoniously considered his response. "Planning. Biters." He sighed in exasperation. "Uh, you know, I'm sorry, I don't feel like I need to explain myself to the henchman."

"Hey!" I snapped. "Shut the hell up, Milton."

His eyes scanned my face dismissively. "So uncouth."

"You better watch your mouth, sunshine," Daryl growled, rounding on him. Fleetingly, I considered reaching out a hand to stop him, to draw him back from this fight, but a much more influential part of me relished the idea of Milton Mamet pissing his pants because of Daryl, so I let him carry on.

Martinez, however, was having none of it. "Look," he said, shifting around the weight of his gun, "if you and I are gonna be out here pointing guns at each other all day, do me a favour and shut your mouth."

"Fuck off," I snapped, as Daryl exhaled loudly and took a few measured, infuriated steps towards Martinez. The tension snapped and crowed in the cool air, sucking us all into its midst. I watched nervously to see what would happen next, wondering if I should intervene, my cocky bravado all gone in the face of Daryl potentially being in danger.

"We don't need this," Hershel interjected calmly. "If it all goes south in there, we'll be at each other's throats soon enough."

Still, Daryl didn't move; neither he nor Martinez so much as blinked. I sighed; resigning myself to the fact that however much I would dearly love to see any of the Governor's men getting a beat down, Hershel was right. "Daryl, come on," I said softly, reaching out a tentative hand to rest on his arm. "Please, Daryl."

"Yeah, Daryl," Martinez sneered. "Listen to your woman, dude."

Eons passed us by in the moments it took Daryl to decide for himself that it wasn't worth it; he blinked first, backed off, stalked away to stand near the edge of the building. I breathed again, and then fixed a disgusted glance upon Martinez who just smiled wider. "So that's your boyfriend, huh, Riley?" he asked, beaming with his new aggravating project before him. "He's not like you described, not one bit."

"Shut up." I glared at him, aware that Daryl had turned back to us once more.

"Oh yeah, man, she was talking about you all the time back at Woodbury," he continued, picking idly at something on his shirt. "It was always 'Daryl this, Daryl that.' She lost her shit over you big time, bro."

Gawping and reddening, I turned to Daryl to mouth an explanation, but was too mortified to form the words. He was staring right at me, eyes wide with shock or perhaps disbelief. And Martinez was still fucking going. "Got a little too detailed a couple of times, too, man. I mean, I know none of us are getting our rocks off as often as we need, but even I had to tell her to — "

I'd never been more grateful to see Andrea in my entire life, and the surprise of her sudden reappearance served to cut even Martinez off, who abandoned his disgusting sentence midstream to watch her stomp out, defeated and awkward, from the feed store and find a seat far away from the rest of us, several feet down the length of the front of the building.

Blushing, I stepped closer to Daryl, pointedly turning my back on the Governor's men. "Hey," I said quietly. "I didn't say any of that shit, he's making it up, okay?"

His blue eyes flickered up to meet mine, and I willed him to realize I cared too much to disrespect him like that. " _I don't know what this is_ ," he'd said to me three days ago, and hell, neither did I, but we both knew it wasn't idle gossip about our nonexistent sex life. He knew, he knew.

Yet he shrugged off the hand I'd hesitantly placed on his arm, moving away from to pace back and forth, like a stressed, caged animal — nervously exhaling now and then, and finally, stopping long enough to lean back against the hood of the SUV, carefully avoiding my apologetic gaze. I exchanged a look with Hershel, and something knowing in his eyes told me to leave it, not to push Daryl or the issue too far.

The ensuing quiet was almost unbearable, the result of a vacuum caused by too much tension followed by too much awkwardness, and I almost wished I was back inside with Rick and the Governor.

Almost.

"Uh…" I looked up to see Milton attempting to traverse the great divide. "There's no reason not to use this time we have together to explore the issues ourselves." He looked from Daryl to Martinez as he spoke, neither of whom showed any indication of the slightest interest in the matter.

"Boss said to tight sit and shut up." Martinez closed his eyes and leaned back against the truck.

Never thought I'd agree with anything the Governor said.

"Don't you mean 'the Governor'?" Daryl asked sardonically, rolling his eyes. Martinez shot him a look of pure venom, but I had to busy myself with biting back an actual goddamn snort of derision. Inappropriate.

"It's a good thing," Milton insisted, "that they're sitting down. Especially after what happened. They're going to work it out. Nobody wants another battle."

My ears perked at that; I thought back to the night before last, when I'd fallen asleep planning my future war stories. The prospect that we were now in the midst of such a saga filled me with a curious conflation of sadness and thrill — I was worried about what this would do to us, how it would change us; but it was damn exciting all the same, to be transformed from a passive recipient of historical inheritance, to an active creator.

Daryl, however, didn't share my enthusiasm. "I wouldn't exactly call it a battle."

"I _would_ call it a battle," Milton retorted gently, holding his notebook aloft. "And I did. I recorded it."

It's what I felt the urge to do, in a strange way. As much as I enjoyed the image of a ten year old Judith sitting down to listen to my old stories, I knew the likelihood of me reaching my thirties was slim. I might not be around to tell her this; none of us may be. The prospect of having something permanent, of having my words tangibly etched somewhere made so much more sense. I'd tried to do it in the early days, keeping track of the outbreak in my black notebook, chronicling the fall of Atlanta, and Chloe's decline. Likely that notebook had burned at the farm, but there was still a chance for me to do something now.

"For what?" Daryl asked, breaking my reverie.

"Somebody's got to keep a record of what we've gone through," Milton pointed out. "It'll be part of our history."

Hershel sighed. "That makes sense."

Milton latched on to Hershel's interest, approaching him excitedly. "I've got dozens of interviews — "

But precisely who those interviews were with, I never found out. From somewhere across the street, near the junkyard that had once simply been the extension of the feed store, rose an echo of some metallic clanking, accompanied by the snarl of multiple walkers. We couldn't see them yet, but they had either heard us or smelled us, and were getting excitable at the promise of a good lunch. I made sure the Glock was secure in my waistband, and reached to unsheathe my knife instead.

Andrea, Martinez, Daryl, and I headed across the street, weapons ready to aim, fire, stab, and swing our way through whatever mess lay around the corner. There were three more silos back here, their exteriors wrapped in sheet metal. The half dozen walkers who were attempting to make their way the narrow spaces in between them were repeatedly bouncing off of them, giving rise to that clanking we'd heard just seconds before.

The four of us would have no problem taking care of them, I thought, but we would need to work together in order to be successful. If we went at them full-tilt and swinging, each attempting to claim the victory for either Woodbury or the prison, we'd likely find ourselves screwing up at some point.

Once the dead realized we were there, they were just thrilled to see us. Daryl had the crossbow poised and ready to go, so I hung back to let him take the initiatory shot — Andrea and Martinez followed suit. Problem was, he didn't take the shot. I watched him bring one arm down in a dramatic sweep, gesturing to the walkers ahead. "After you," he said pointedly, looking right at Martinez, who just shook his head in response.

"No way. You first."

Extensive experience with the machismo of my elder brothers had firmly taught me that neither man here would make the first move, so, after sharing a look of exasperation, Andrea and I both launched ourselves forward. She edged out ahead of me, driving her switchblade deep into the eye socket of the closest walker with an almighty, exaggerated groan. "Why," I huffed, shoving back the second, "do people feel the need to make those noises when they go in for the kill? This isn't fucking Wimbledon, Andrea." Flesh squelched around my knife.

"Pussy," I heard Martinez snap, before swinging his baseball bat elaborately into the face of a third walker, and I paused briefly to watch him turn back to Daryl, who just shrugged. He wasn't impressed, and neither was I. We were literally in the middle of a small horde, and these two were having a pissing contest.

Another walker started approaching, and I realized then that there were probably even more hidden beyond the edges of the silos. They had a natural herding instinct, and would tended to intuitively follow others, particularly during the promise of a feed. The ones we were now facing had worked themselves up into a significant frenzy, despite the fact that we were swiftly dispatching them.

I struggled to release my knife from the temple of my second kill, so Daryl took the chance to shoot his first from over my shoulder. Martinez swept past me and took out another, still swinging that baseball bat like we were about to be awarded points for style. When my knife finally released, I whirled around to pull a rather skinny one away from Andrea, who was getting slightly overwhelmed. While I pressed the disgusting carcass into the side of the nearest silo, Andrea reached past me to stab it through the side of the head.

We both paused, breathing heavily and sharing an unspoken memory of the many times we'd worked so deftly together all those months ago. Our rest gave me the opportunity to watch Daryl and Martinez's little competition up ahead on the path, closer to where the silos gave way to an open field, littered with farm detritus. Daryl shot one bolt through two walkers that had helpfully lined themselves up within range of his bow. The second walker was taller than the first, though, and ended up only with a bolt through the throat. Martinez strode over to finish him off, still with the intricate sweeping of his bat.

What a waste of time.

Before he could land a blow, however, Daryl's knife came arcing almost gracefully through the air, landing square in the face of the last walker a split second before Martinez could swing his bat around. Despite himself, he turned to Daryl with a seriously impressed look, and I smiled as Daryl gave him a little "hell yeah" nod in response. It was old world, a fleeting glimpse of a Daryl Dixon I'd never known.

Seeing that we were finished, Andrea hurried back around to the front of the store, presumably to wait for her fearless leader to emerge with yet another obnoxious, self-aggrandizing monologue. I wiped a sheen of sweat from my forehead, wincing as my fingers brushed against the cut I kept forgetting existed. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Daryl crouch down over the last walker, likely to retrieve his bolt and knife. Martinez leaned back against the nearest silo, idly twirling his bat in his hands.

"Look what he's got." Daryl held a small white pack of cigarettes aloft, a small, victorious smile playing about his mouth. He fished one out and stuck it between his lips, held out the package to Martinez, an offer and a truce all in one.

But Martinez just shook his head slightly. "Nah, I prefer menthols."

"Douchebag." He didn't offer one to me, which reminded me that not ten minutes before, we'd both been completely mortified by Martinez's insinuations and alleged reports of my wanton swooning for him while at Woodbury. A disappointed blush coloured my cheeks as Daryl lit up his smoke, and I turned to leave. "Riley."

He held the smouldering cigarette aloft — an old gesture for the two of us, one we hadn't really indulged in since the woods. Things had been too tense and uncertain over the past few days to really find the time for a quiet smoke, but I took it now, fingers trembling as they brushed his, needing the nicotine and the absolution all at once.

Martinez looked at us with a quizzical expression, but there was something else in it, too. Maybe a little envy. "She didn't really say all that shit, man," he said quietly. "I made it up. Sorry, girl."

His apology seemed genuine, even though it took me firmly aback. I exhaled in a curl of smoke and handed the cigarette back to Daryl, who just nodded. "You army or something?" he asked, taking a drag and changing the subject fluidly.

"No," Martinez kicked at the ground. "I just…I just hate these things. After what they did to my wife…kids."

And that was all it took. Empathy doesn't know battle-lines, and thank God that's so. A year and a half ago, Martinez was just a normal person, living his own life with his family, just like Daryl and I now. Maybe he'd lived in Atlanta, too — maybe I'd passed him on the street. Now here we were, ready and willing to fight to the death for a crumbling prison and a makeshift paradise, ready to toss the other out of the picture in exchange for a shot at home and tentative peace. Not so long ago he'd been a husband, a father…and now he had to be our enemy. It was so messed up.

"Sucks." Daryl took another drag, handed me the smoke again.

Martinez nodded solemnly. "Thanks."

We stood there in silence for a few more minutes, the three of us, each tallying up the losses that had brought us to this moment. Daryl and I continued to pass the smoke back and forth, and Martinez's eyes flickered over each time, watching as our lips gently touched the same spot, a kiss with no contact. "This is a joke, right?" he said after a while. "They ain't gonna work anything out. Sure, they'll do their little dance and tomorrow, next day…they'll give the word."

Daryl nodded solemnly. "I know."

Panic unfurled in my stomach at his reply, but even I wasn't surprised. Martinez was right — negotiation couldn't work, not after blood had been spilled on both sides. We had frightened Woodbury, I knew that; but they'd terrorized us, too. God knows what had really happened to Glenn and Maggie; and I could still feel the heat of bloodlust from the crowd at the arena. We'd come here today riding a tide of good intentions, but we were all going to drown anyway.

"Hey." Martinez gestured to the cigarettes, and Daryl stepped forward to hand him one. We made our own peace in there in a cloud of shared smoke.

* * *

It took about another hour for them to come to a decision. Daryl, Martinez, and I burned through the pack of cigarettes (which had been only half full to begin with), and then headed back out around to the feed store. Hershel and Milton were still engrossed in conversation, and Andrea was nursing her shattered pride on an overturned wheelbarrow. I sat down beside her, with only solidarity in mind. Forgiveness didn't taste right, not just yet, and she seemed to understand.

The sun had come out in full force by now, the cool air we'd enjoyed earlier had now warmed into a midmorning, autumnal haze. Idly, I wondered if I would need the sweater on the trip back. Daryl still hadn't removed his leather jacket, but that was no indication…

The doors slide open with an almighty creak, and the Governor made his smiling way over to his truck. Just like that, any progress we'd made out here was dashed away in the face of our disparate loyalties, and without questioning or being told to do anything, each of the six of us there outside made our way to our respective stations. Rick slid into the driver's seat of the SUV, slamming his door shut as he waited for Hershel. I didn't bother with the sweater, just situated myself behind Daryl on the bike, wrapping my sore, bruised arms around his waist and risking it all to lean forward for a bit of comfort. He didn't shift, didn't question it, just let me rest a worried, weary head against his back, as I struggled to rid my mind of every as-yet-unnecessary fear, every little nightmare curling its fingers around my heart.

The prison was a welcome sight, but by the end of our nearly thirty minute drive home, those little nightmares had developed into full blown horrors behind my tired eyes, and I was concerned I'd have a hard time disengaging my grip from Daryl's waist. It was so comforting to give the responsibility for something over to another, even just for a little while, but as the motorcycle ground to a halt in the prison yard and Daryl turned off the engine, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to face the results of this morning no matter what.

At Rick's direction, we gathered inside the cellblock, each of us armed to the teeth with a long-gun. I leaned back against the wall between Beth and Carol's cells, apart from everyone else, sure that the anxiety was dripping from my fingertips. We ranged ourselves around our leader, scared and yet confident that despite whatever had taken place with the Governor, despite the tiny fractures of belief that had splintered through our group before and inevitably would again — despite all that, Rick wouldn't lead us into something we didn't need to be in. Negotiation with the town had been high on my list yesterday, but today, I just wanted to live. I just wanted to live to tell Judith this story.

"So I met with this Governor. Sat with him for quite a while," Rick began.

"Just the two of you?" Merle interjected, and Rick nodded at him. I couldn't quite catch it, but as he moved away from our leader, I was sure the elder Dixon muttered something (probably something mutinous) to Glenn as he passed.

Rick continued as though the interruption hadn't occurred. "He wants the prison."

Of course he did. We'd be the jewel in his crown, the dogs brought to heel.

"He wants us gone. Dead." Rick swept his hand across the grey expanse of our home. "He wants us dead, for what we did to Woodbury." Beth's hand, so much prettier, so much more delicate than mine, gripped my fingers so tightly it made me want to cry. What did she think I could offer her, when I was so damn scared myself?

Rick paused, weighing his words.

"We're going to war."


	20. This Sorrowful Life

_**Chapter XX: This Sorrowful Life**_

A year ago, I'd kissed RJ the Destroyer good morning; sipped a too-sweet coffee on the way to class; kept up with my journalism project and avoided my mother's phone calls. A year ago, around this time, Chloe and I had gotten into an argument over switching her major; we'd made up over microwaved quesadillas and a dumb movie. A year ago, getting ready for the day had involved a hairbrush and makeup; a cute outfit and my laptop in my bag. A year ago, I'd been someone else.

And today, I slid my knife into my new sheath and tested the weight of the Remington in my hands. The night had been fitful, and I had tossed and turned for hours before finally collapsing into something resembling rest in the early hours of the morning, just in time to be jolted awake by Judith's daily fight against her first diaper being changed.

There was a strange note on the air, an unspoken threat or promise tightening and flexing tangibly in our midst. I chose a seat next to Beth, offering her a small smile after I had scraped out a minuscule serving of oatmeal from Carol's communal bowl up on the countertop. "Morning," I murmured, loading up my spoon.

She replied tearfully, nervously, so I just squeezed her shoulder and looked around the room for someone a little cheerier to help us out. Grim faces stared back at me from every corner — all except those of Rick, Hershel, and Daryl. Suspicion raised its hackles, and I shoved the last serving of food into my mouth before pushing back from the table. "I need a smoke," I said in reply to Beth's questioning look. "I'll be right back."

There was no reason to be concerned, I realized, as I strode down the cellblock first. One of them might still be asleep, another might have taken his breakfast elsewhere — there was no reason for my sudden, flashing alarm. No reason except for the tiny, insistent flicker of intuition that told me _I should be worried_. When we'd returned from the sit-down a few days before, it had become an unspoken rule that the four of us who'd attended had somewhat accepted a sense of authority about the whole proceeding. Rick had assembled sort of a rudimentary war council, one that was still open and honest with everyone else, but which required him, myself, Hershel, Daryl, and frequently Glenn to meet in the quiet of the warden's office, discussing how we should approach the epic pickle we now found ourselves in. That I had been allowed to sleep in, that I didn't find them with the group…that was concerning. Sure as hell.

I knocked on the office door first, waited a beat, and then whipped it open, as though I expected to catch them all in the act. "Plotting without me, boys?" I imagined saying, and then mentally berated myself for not having something better prepared.

The room was empty, save for the cigarettes Daryl and I had shared yesterday still littering the floor. If we were going to stay here, I realized, kicking them off to the side, we were definitely going to need to develop some better habits, cleanliness-wise.

If they weren't here, then perhaps they were outside. I headed instead for the main doors through the cafeteria, ignoring the curious glances of the others, including Merle. "Looking for ass, baby?" he crowed. I responded with one finger. I was all about efficiency this morning.

As I scanned the yard and the field beyond, I tried to rub some warmth into my prickling arms. Fall was hurtling towards us full-tilt, bringing with it the icy threat of winter. The colder weather would be of some benefit to us, as it tended to slow some of the walkers down and even outright freeze those with less bodily integrity. However, it would also limit our ability to scavenge, and our food supplies were already troublingly low. Preparing for war was taking up too much of our time, I thought irreverently.

I couldn't see any of them in the yard or field, and the sense of suspicion (which had been only idling within me until this point) fanned out into a full flame. They had deliberately concealed themselves from me, and whatever they were talking about, I feared, they didn't want me involved.

"Good morning, sweetheart." Hershel came limping around the corner of the cellblock with a smile; Daryl close behind. "How are the stitches?"

I composed a smile on my face, as though I hadn't just been imagining a covert betrayal taking place out on the basketball court. "Fine. Itchy." He nodded, pleased, saying something about checking on them a little later this afternoon. Slowly, with a meaningful look in Daryl's direction ( _Oh, they weren't very good at this at all_ ), he made his way back inside the cellblock, leaving just Mr Dixon and I standing on the front steps.

"Good morning, Daryl," I said quietly, daring him to make eye contact with me. Whatever secret had passed between the two of them, I wanted to know. I wanted him to know that I was aware. But mostly I wanted the satisfaction of breaking it out of him with just a look, a quiet greeting. Ideally, I'd be able to simply disconcert him into confessing.

But, as usual, I underestimated him. "Mornin'," he replied idly, chewing on his thumb. His eyes flickered up to briefly meet mine, and then shot away with a blink as he took in my tense stare, set quite at odds with the knowing smile that creased my face. "Imma head in for something to eat."

And he did.

Just like that. He wrenched open the doors of the prison, but jumped back as though scalded when both of my hands wrapped around his and slammed them back. "Where were you guys?" I asked sharply. "What's going on that I couldn't be a part of?"

The urge to simply cuss me out flashed clearly in his eyes, and I held my breath in anticipation. He'd sort this out with a "fuck you" and then we'd be miles apart again, and I'd certainly be no further ahead in understanding what the hell was going on. We would fight, infuse a healthy dose of tension into an already nervous environment, and everyone inside would be ever so grateful for our efforts.

The curse never came. His eyes softened when they looked at me, and he turned back towards me, our hands still intertwined in what had, seconds before, been a forceful, preventative gesture. "Nothin', girl. Don't worry about it."

I took a step towards him, closing the gulf between us and watching as he swallowed, hard. To be fair, I hadn't showered in a few days. "Tell me, please." It came out as little more than a whisper, and that was it — I went too far. He pulled his hands out of my grasp, and slammed the doors behind him.

I shouldn't have cared. I certainly shouldn't have teared up. Once upon a time, we would never have met. In another world, I'd been one version of Riley and he one version of Daryl, and those people would go about their lives never suspecting that the other was out there. My eyes would've slid past him on an Atlanta sidewalk, hardly guessing the things I could grow to feel for him. But would I feel this way in the old world? Would I have been as willing to be attracted by his strength, his quietness, his shifting moods?

Back then, I'd looked for a man who adapted to me — RJ had fit neatly into my life, causing me to change only just enough to keep things interesting. He'd learned to be patient with my exacting nature, to make me laugh when I least expected it, to respect my boundaries, limits, wants, and my needs. But Daryl didn't do any of that. He just was who he was, zero fucks were given, and I found that remarkable.

So I teared up when he slammed the door, realizing I'd pushed him too much, presumed way too much by putting my hands on him so. We were all under a lot of pressure, and my little interrogation had been, in a word, ridiculous. It was awfully arrogant of me to assume that I would now be part of every single goddamn decision Rick made. What did I have to recommend myself to such a position? That I was a good judge of character?

I spent the rest of the morning bullying myself mentally in this same vein, working with Maggie, Carl, and a dozen pots and pans to draw the field walkers closer to the interior gate, giving Glenn and Daryl a chance to lay down some defensive barbed wire platforms, and for Michonne to dispatch a few. "Hey, ugly!" I shouted, bringing a small knot of them closer to me and away from the silver truck. "Here, here!" I brought two frying pans together in an almighty crash and then ran them along the metal links of the fence until they sang. _Rick brought you to balance the numbers,_ I thought, repeating the action noisily. _Three of his people to face three of the Governor's. He wanted you for the bruises, for the cuts and the scrapes. He wanted to show them what the Governor was capable of. You were just a body, just an exhibit. You_ aren't _special._

"They try to drive up to the gate again, maybe some blown tires will stop them," I heard Glenn say as I approached the prison yard, hoping to catch a word with Michonne.

Rick nodded in agreement. "That's a good idea."

"It was Michonne's," Daryl interjected sharply, and I looked at him in surprise — his tone seemed unnecessarily hostile, and I was taken aback. He and Rick had been on very good terms lately, despite the shitstorm currently surrounding us, so unless something had taken place while they were hiding this morning…

"We don't have to win," Michonne added, giving me a small smile and a nudge on the arm. "We just have to make their getting at us more trouble than it's worth."

"Nice one," I commended her, and wound my arm through hers. Things hadn't been the greatest between us these past few days — the debacle with Andrea had dredged up some strange feelings — but we still had each other, at least. She rubbed my arm absentmindedly, and I clocked Daryl giving us a strange look. What did it matter? Despite his brother's philosophies, I felt confident that Daryl wasn't racist. He worked with Michonne, after all — was able to point out her good ideas, spoke politely (for him) to her. So what was up?

Maggie and Carl approached with the remaining pots and pans; they'd been slightly further out in the fence than I had. We waited for them to catch up, and then Rick told us it was time to head in. I was determined to avoid Daryl for the rest of the day; it had been awkward and disappointing thus far, and I wasn't interested in a repeat performance. Carol needed help sorting out some ammunition and preparing our meagre medical supplies; I gave her three hours and earned myself a crick deep in my back for my trouble.

"I'm going to put her down for a nap." Carol pushed back from the table and carried Judith over to the playpen that Rick, Carl, and Michonne had brought back a few days before. It was far more comfortable for the baby than the box, and I thought it lent a nice sense of normalcy to our space. Besides, I liked hearing her snuffle while I finished rolling up bandages. It was a peaceful sound.

"Ready girls?" Hershel and his daughters had settled themselves around the table furthest from where I sat. Beth sent a sweet smile my way over her shoulder, and I looked over curiously. " _Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night. Nor for the arrow that flieth by day…_ "

His voice was rich and full, sweeping over the expanse of the lyrical Biblical phrasing as though it were the most natural pattern of speech in the world. " _Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness. Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday_." Suddenly awkward at my eavesdropping, I focused my attention back on the bandages in my hands, trying to block out Hershel's reading.

My family had never been religious; my parents worshipped at the altar of modern democracy. Our Sundays had been spent studying, practicing, touring local museums or art galleries — if we prayed for anything, it was self-improvement, success. I knew a little of the Bible, however, having gone to a historically Quaker school. I liked the poetry of it, though me and God were plenty distant these days. Still, if it brought the Greene family comfort, then Hershel could read the whole thing and I wouldn't mind one bit.

" _He shall cover thee and under His wings shalt thou trust. There shall no evil befall thee. Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling_."

But it had. God, had it ever.

"What I wouldn't do to keep you two safe," Hershel finished tearfully, and that was too much, that was too damn much. I rose from the table, choking back tears, and as I raced along the length of the cellblock, I realized how much of an idiot I'd been. There would be no war stories for Judith, because I wouldn't be there to tell them. This was going to kill us, this war, and that Governor was gunning for Glenn, for Maggie, for Rick, for Michonne, for Merle, and for me. We were his problems. And in a matter of days I could be dead, dying, or worse in this cellblock, holding my insides in like Dale had…

"Mich?" She was busy, preparing for something, slinging the katana over her shoulders with a grimace. "Going somewhere?"

She sighed. "There's a breach in one of the lower cellblocks," she explained, tightening the laces of her boots. "Rick asked Merle and I to head down and check it out. If the Governor were to find it and exploit it…well, it wouldn't be pretty."

"Need any help?" Despite my efforts, my voice cracked on the last word, and her eyes shot up to examine my face. I was trying damn hard to keep it all in, but Hershel's pledge to his daughters had struck deep at one of the most heartbreaking aspects of this whole thing, for me personally, at least: that I had no family here. I would die with people who still held me at arm's length — I would die without being loved, without being missed. Maggie had Glenn, her sister, and her father; Carol had baby Judith, and the obvious affection that Rick, Carl, and even Daryl showed for her. The Dixons had each other.

I didn't want to die unloved. I didn't want to die at twenty-two, not after having come so far already. I didn't want to die because of this Governor. I didn't want to die in this prison. Michonne couldn't read these racing thoughts, however, so she just squeezed my hand, told me to get some rest and tell anybody who said anything about that to go to hell. "You've had a big couple of days, kid," she said with a smile, pointing to the bed she'd claimed for herself there on the lower level. "We'll talk later."

Sleep didn't come. The old panic was blooming bright and angry in my chest, making me toss and turn even in the dim light of Michonne's cell. I wanted to be a million things all at once, wanted to tear myself into pieces and go to all the places I'd once loved so dearly. Closing my eyes, I tried to picture the beach I'd learned to swim at; the feeling of my childhood mattress beneath me; the voices of my brothers struggled to float back to me; but I could picture the old dorm room — Chloe's messy black hair snuggled into her pillow across the way, the scent of coconut oil rising from her curls; the hum of the central air; the thumping of early-risers a floor above us; books and papers and candles and clothes stacked here and there; reminders of due dates circled in red on the calendar we shared. That had been my life, once upon a time, and I hadn't appreciated it as much as I should've. I'd complained about dorm food, about the slowness of the washing machines, about the jerks who lived across the hall and made our whole floor smell like pot every weekend. What I wouldn't give to see them again.

After nearly an hour of this, I decided I needed fresh air. That would do it. That would snap me out of this panic, shock it right from my bones, and bring me back to focus. I had a prison to help defend, after all, and laying on a prison mattress crying about "dying unloved," that sure as hell wasn't going to get anything done.

Outside, I indulged in a couple of deep, gulping breaths of the fresh fall air. Within seconds, I felt better, calmer. In the field beyond, I could see the barbed wire covered wooden slabs that Michonne had dreamed up; even the walkers themselves out there might go some way to making a Woodbury advance difficult. We had a nice store of guns now, and way more ammo thanks to Rick's trip to King County. We had a chance. We had a chance.

"Riley, have you seen Michonne?" Rick was making his way across the main yard area of our cellblock, a strained expression on his face.

I shook my head, stepping down to walk with him as he continued, heading over towards the basketball court. "Not for about an hour. Said she was heading down to do some clearing with Merle or something. You asked her to, she said."

He didn't answer me, just increased his stride.

I hadn't noticed before, but Daryl had been out in the yard as well, likely coming back from a watch shift. We met him in the middle of the yard. "It's off," Rick said quickly. "We'll take our chances."

"I'm not saying it was the wrong call," Daryl replied, relief pouring over his face, "but this is definitely the right one." He caught my eye, smiled slightly, and ordinarily, yes I would be thrilled by this development, but I was still pretty damn confused.

"What's off?" I asked slowly, looking between the two of them.

* * *

"I can't fucking believe this!" I hissed in Rick's ear as we made our way into the communications room. "You assholes! How could you even consider doing this to her?"

He had explained the disgusting plan to me out in the yard: how the Governor had demanded Michonne be handed over, and how Rick planned to do it so as to alleviate any potential attacks. Merle had been brought in on it, too — it was his job to take her back to Woodbury. "I'm sorry, Riley. I made a mistake, and I'm sorry," he said now, pushing open the door and racing into the room. None of us had been able to find either Merle or Michonne, and the big anxious elephant in the room was telling us that they'd already left, that Merle hadn't stuck around to hear anything more about Rick's plan.

"He was in here," Daryl said, poking around the old communication equipment, tables, and wires. "Said he was looking for drugs. Said a lot of things, actually."

We walked around the major heater control in the centre of the room, taking in no signs that anybody had been in there recently. That must've been hours ago, when Daryl had talked to him last. I bit my lip at the thought of Michonne just heading down there, telling me to sleep in her bed, and now…how much of a head start had they gotten?

"Like what?" Rick asked.

"Said you were gonna change your mind." Daryl knelt down to pick something up. "Here we go." He moved what looked like a striped pillowcase, and then looked back down at the dusty floor. "Yeah, he took her here. They mixed it up."

"Damn it!" Rick snapped, pacing nervously. "I'm going after him." He strode through the open door near Daryl, the one that I knew led to a weapons cage and then to another exit door.

"You can't track for shit." Daryl and I followed him out.

Rick looked back at him, and I knew what he was thinking: Merle might've already made it there. This may turn out to be more of a last-stand than a genuine rescue mission. "Then the both of us," he reasoned.

"No, just me. I said I'd go and I'll go." Daryl moved towards the door, crossbow poised in his hand. "Plus they're gonna come back here. You need to be ready." He leaned back against the exit door, pushing it open slightly. "Your family, too."

It took me all of eight seconds to make my decision, and Rick knew my choice before I'd even fully gotten there myself. "Here." He shoved his rifle into my hands. "Take care of him." As an afterthought, he stamped a kiss to the good side of my forehead. "Come home."

I wasn't really dressed for the weather, wasn't prepared for what I was about to do, not at all. But I chased after Daryl, heart in my throat and a cool sweat forming on my brow, his name dancing on my lips. "No." That was all he said, blue eyes icy cold in my direction. "Go back inside. He's my brother."

"And she's my friend." I jutted my chin in the air, willing him to see as more than an uncoordinated, (frequently) bitchy college girl. I could handle this, I could help him. "Please, Daryl. She's my friend."

He chewed the inside of his cheek, looking me up and down, and between us, our history echoed. Chloe, Atlanta, the quarry, the CDC, the farm…and now the prison. He'd seen me change, from that dull-eyed girl on the highway, cradling her dead friend — to the woman standing in front of him now, pleading for a shot at the life of a new friend. He knew full well he could say "no" a hundred times to me right now, but that I'd still head out, still go looking for her. I couldn't save Chloe; I had a chance here now to save Michonne, and I was going to take it. With or without him.

Thankfully, he chose "with."

"You stay close, do whatever I say, and if I tell you to run, girl, what do you do?"

"Save your ass?" I smiled, a benediction and a note of forgiveness, all in one. I could be angry at them all later, when Michonne was back with us and we'd survived everything. Then I'd yell. Only then.

We moved through the woods deftly, encountering just four and a half walkers on our way. The cold nipped at my arms slightly, but fortunately I'd had the wherewithal to slip on a long-sleeved shirt of Mich's before heading outside. It helped, just a little, but it was clear that winter was coming on with a vengeance. After about forty minutes of walking, though, Daryl stopped short at the edge of the forest. Over his shoulder I could see a wide, grassy expanse of what had once likely been a local park, judging by the vacant houses surrounding it. In the middle of this field, however, walking right toward us (though her attention was focusing on ramming her katana through a walker's severed head) was Michonne. It seemed to be both a split second and a lifetime before I was wrapping my arms around her, pressing my face into her dreadlocks and tumbling apologies into her ears. "Are you okay?" I pulled away and examined her up and down. "Did he do anything to do you?"

"Where's my brother?" Daryl's voice boomed from over my shoulder, and I turned to see him walking towards us with an expression decidedly less pleased than mine. He bit his lip. "You kill him?"

Michonne shook her head almost imperceptibly. "He let me go."

He swallowed hard, and then adjusted his crossbow more firmly in his hands. "Don't let anyone come after me," he growled, pushing around us to head further out into the field, but not before I'd grabbed the back of his vest. He just stopped, didn't even look back.

"Let me come with you," I said softly. "I'll help you find him."

"Don't need your help," he replied brusquely, roughly shoving away from my grip. "You found your friend, now I gotta go get my brother. Go back with her."

Michonne grasped my shoulder, pulling me away, and I knew she was right, she was always right. I shouldn't push him; he was scared and angry and guilty and me poking and prodding him and trying to turn this into a Hugh Grant movie was not going to help anyone. A logical voice somewhere too deep within me screamed at me to let him go, to shut up, to wish him well and hope he would come home, but I ignored it. One more time I tried: "Daryl, please, let me help, please, I — "

"Shut up!" He rounded on me, eyes blazing in a way I'd never seen before. "Get off me, bitch! You're nothing to me! I don't give a shit where you go, but you ain't coming with me. That's my brother out there! And Imma go get him on — my — own!"

 _Don't cry._

 _Don't cry._

 _Don't fucking cry._

Michonne and I stood there long after he'd run out of sight, letting the cold stain us and prickle our skin and sting me far worse than his words had. "Bitch," he'd called me. "Nothing," he'd called me. I'd been treated poorly by guys before, but had always managed to hold my own. Growing up with asshole brothers will do that for you — a younger sibling learns quick how to stake a claim, fight back, call them out, or at least go running to Mom. There'd been a boyfriend in my senior year of high school, one who'd gotten a little too hands-on at a party once, and when he tried to call me a tease, I'd relieved him of an eyetooth with a right hook I hadn't known I possessed until then.

Back then, I'd just been angry; at that moment, in the wake of Daryl's ire, I was crushed. "Come on, kid, let's go." Michonne's voice was raspy and welcome in my ear, and her hands had some miraculous warmth to them, but I didn't want to go. I wasn't going, and we both knew it. Though it may have counted as the most monumentally stupid decision of my life, I was about to follow him again. He shouldn't be alone; he just didn't know that.

I left her with a smile, with a reassuring embrace and a promise to return her shirt in person. I left her with good intentions, but with every step I took I knew I was taking the greatest risk since leaving the college. With every step, I might die. I also had no clue where he would go.

He'd raced down the sidewalk to get away from us, but that was no indication he would stick to such a defined path. One thing I'd learned about the Dixons was that they didn't take too kindly to residential streets or nicely paved trails. They'd rather fight their way through the undergrowth. Reaching the bottom of the hill, I could see where he'd indeed hurried through a couple of bushes. The earth was just soft enough and the air just cold enough to hold a few boot prints here and there, giving me somewhat of a trail to follow. Here and there, I registered broken branches and a dip in the dirt where he may have slipped or stopped, digging his heel in slightly.

Merle had had a car, Michonne had told me before we'd parted. He'd been intent on heading to the meeting spot, wherever that was, where he hoped to run into the Governor and deliver her to him. _The meeting spot_. The feed store. How could I have been so dense?

Daryl would've disapproved, but I made for the number 14 highway, keeping a watchful eye on the woods around me. I had my knife and the Remington was full, but if there was a swarm, I was pretty much screwed. Once I'd mounted the lip of the road, however, and found myself immediately oriented to my general position (a sign advertising a local diner that had once been situated in Woodbury helped me out there), I decided that sometimes, a stupid risk was just plain worth it.

I broke into a run that had the gun bouncing on my back and my heart pounding in my chest, but I was spurred on by the staccato of anxiety echoing in every nerve I possessed. I tried to drown it out with reassurances: I would get there in time; the Governor wouldn't be there; Daryl and Merle and I would have a smoke before we headed back, and we would fall ourselves trying to apologize to each other. It would be like Daryl's tirade in the field had never, ever happened, and I would forgive him and he would forgive me, and he would jokingly tell me to never, ever touch his vest again…

Chest heaving, hands slippery with sweat, I turned onto Logan Road. _Just a little further_ , _just a little further._ Low, rasping moans cut through the quiet of the afternoon. _Not them, not them, not them_. Energy I didn't know I still had shot through me like nicotine and I pushed myself forward, leaping down into the ditch and racing along the front of the feed store, between the silos, out towards the buildings we'd skirted around just a few days before.

And then he was in my arms, and I pulled the knife away, Merle's blood painting both of our hands with a sickening chill that belonged only to a walker. "Oh my God," I panted, yanking him away from the face he couldn't stop stabbing. "He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, love." We fell back together, and he cried, he sobbed, like I had never heard him before. "Damn it," I whimpered, but there was nothing I could do, nothing in the world I could do but hold him close to me, kiss his hair, and say his name as we lay there in the grass, his dead brother's corpse mouldering beside us — the sky wheeling overhead, the only witness to this sorrowful life.

* * *

Reviews and feedback are always appreciated. Thanks for reading :)


	21. Welcome To The Tombs

_**Chapter XXI: Welcome To The Tombs**_

My anger flickered to life in the night. Sweat and fury rolled from my pores, and hurt twisted deep within me as I realized, now that the rush of adrenalin had faded, how close I had come to losing Michonne today. Because of Rick. And Daryl.

I'd called him "love." He'd called me a bitch. The words pounded still in my ears, laced with a sudden rancour I just couldn't comprehend. Of course he'd been worried about Merle, but God, I'd just been trying to help. To show I cared. But then I'd held him, stroked his hair - his brother's blood had dried on my skin, too.

Daryl had apologized for his words; we didn't talk about what I'd said, which suited me just damn fine, since I was not overly eager to interrogate the precise logic behind me being absolutely shattered by his rejection in one moment, and then whispering endearments into his ear the next. Empathy moved between those two points, I knew that, but it pained me to think I'd allowed myself to be so...so…

"Fuck you," I muttered to the shadows, wishing I could say that to their faces. They'd wanted to use her, to drag her to the Governor and offer her up as a sacrifice. His apology rang hollow in my ears, even the second and third time around; he had yet to acknowledge his part in the scheme. "You ain't nothing," he'd rasped, his voice strained after so much sobbing. "I'm sorry." Unsure of what to say to this, I'd simply reached over and touched a hand to his knee, torn between the pain and the empathy and the stirrings of my fresh rage. It was an old gesture, one he'd practiced in the early days, in the moments after the CDC explosion, when he'd tethered me to sanity and calm with a hand on my knee in his old truck.

But he hadn't acknowledged Michonne. Hadn't said a word to the fact that he and Rick had plotted to kill my friend.

He marked Merle's empty grave that evening, with a roughly hewn wooden cross, and a well of memory that I couldn't touch. I watched him head down the hill, went to bed for an hour or two with a jagged heart and Michonne's breathing above me.

When he returned, we hadn't talked much, but maybe that was a good thing. Part of me wanted to discuss what had taken place out there in the grass, that my lips had brushed his skin for the first time, that I'd called him something other than "Daryl" or "Hey, you," but I understood implicitly that neither of us were truly ready for what that would entail, and that my reckoning of his actions prior to those moments had enlarged that sea of experience between us. Now more than ever, neither of us knew what this was.

Rick shared the new plan with us when he came back inside, and it was blessedly simple: escape. Or, at least, prepare for it. With a little surprise, just for fun. That night was spent in a flurry of activity, as we hurriedly packed up our belongings and cleaned our shelves. Reclaiming our liberty felt almost intoxicating, and our energy abounded throughout the long hours of work, until the grey dawn when we moved outside and began loading up the vehicles. If we were indeed forced to leave, I would miss the prison and the firm comfort of a known home, but there would be something else. Another place we could fortify, live, grow, and heal from the pain inflicted upon us both within and without these walls. We would be better people, far away from the Governor, far away from the worst of of our memories.

I managed to fill just one backpack with my personal items, which amounted now to three shirts, one sweater, a pair of jeans that had seen _much_ better days, a handful of socks and underwear, and two battered paperbacks I hoped to find the time to read during the drive to somewhere. Slipping on a fairly warm green canvas jacket that Carol had magically produced for me, I tried to say goodbye to my cell. It wasn't much, that was for damn sure, but it had been the first space I'd truly been able to call my own since...well, since the college. Since Chloe. There would be others, though, I reminded myself, slinging the backpack across my shoulders and following Carol out to the yard. There would be others.

"You okay?" she asked quietly, as I held open the main door for her.

"As okay as I'm likely to get," I shrugged.

We stepped out into the early morning light. It was the coldest day we'd experienced so far this year, and yet in that, there was a sense of promise. Or perhaps it was urgency masquerading as such. "I'm just glad you went after him," she sighed, peering around the yard until she spotted the "him" we were now apparently talking about. "You brought him home."

 _Nothing. Bitch_.

I followed Carol across the pavement towards Daryl's motorcycle. He was sitting on the ground next to it, bundling up a supply of bolts, set apart from the hustle and bustle of the main group preparing to head out. He glanced up at the sound of our footsteps, but quickly looked away when he realized I was with Carol. Things were still awkward. Holding a grown man while he cries for his asshole brother, stroking his hair, kissing his temple…that'll sour a friendship for a few days, sure enough.

 _Nothing. Bitch_.

"You know," he said quietly, "Merle never did nothing like that his whole life." He shoved a few more items into his rucksack, tugging them down with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.

Carol's response was soft and certain, and so true it hurt: "He gave us a chance."

He had. If Merle Dixon had done nothing else worthwhile or meaningful in his life, he had loved his brother, and through that love, we all had this chance, even if it was just a few moments' head-start. Because of him, I still had Michonne; because of him, we'd live to fight another day. I watched as Carol reached out her hand to Daryl, surprised to see him take it and allow her to help him to his feet. As she walked away, I made to follow, but she shot me a look that clearly said I should stay with him. Uncertainly, I turned, to see him looking uncertainly back at me, too.

"You...d'you wanna…" He let it trail off, possibly embarrassed or just feeling the weight of the past few weeks. There was kindness there, penitence, but I only heard two words and a world of betrayal between his breaths.

The iciness with which I met his blue eyes was flawed by the tiniest chink of thaw. One wrong move, and my resolve would melt or crumble. There was this vindictive streak in me now, perhaps honed by years as the youngest sibling, at the mercy of my brothers' teasing and pranks and empty apologies. I was angry. At Daryl. And a ride on his bike was not going to nearly atone for the fact that he had almost, indirectly, killed Michonne.

"No, thanks," I replied quietly, looking down at a small hole in the asphalt. Tripping hazard, really. "I'm going in the SUV with Hershel and the kids, in the woods."

"'Kay." He started chewing on his thumb. "I'm...uh...s-"

"No," I interrupted swiftly, holding up a hand. "No more apologies. I know you were upset. You've already told me you didn't mean it."

I'd said some pretty rotten shit in my time, too. Lost track of the number of "dumbasses" I'd flung in my brothers' direction; cussed out Tina Meyers after a field hockey match a fair amount. Those words were shallow, delved from just beneath a sore surface, and I wasn't interested in their origins beyond Daryl's pain and fear in those moments. But there was something else I wanted him to apologize for, something I wanted him to recognize, to point to and say, _That was the worst thing I've ever almost done._

I cleared my throat, throwing myself into the painful chasm between us. "The plan...the plan about Michonne…"

"It was fucked up," he said quickly.

My eyes flashed and narrowed. "You're goddamn right it was." I was tempted to use the "m word," but I still cared about him enough to muster even the slightest hesitancy. Shifting my weight and crossing my arms, I waited for his response. Apology. Penance. For the attempted murder of my best friend.

"We thought we had no choice, Riley. It was her or them. None of us liked it. I tried to tell Rick…"

"I don't give a shit. Just know that next time some kind of bullshit idea like that comes into your heads, where you think Michonne's life is worth any less than ours, you better tie me up and drag me with her, because -"

"Because what?" He glared at me. He actually glared at me, as though I was the one in the wrong here.

"Because it'll be over. Everything. Every bullshit thing. If it comes down to it, I choose her." _Oh, hell_. Once the words had tumbled from my mouth, I knew they weren't entirely true. God, if I'd honestly had to choose them or Michonne, I wasn't sure what I'd do. After all, I'd chosen Daryl before - over every single one of them. But the truth was, I didn't want to have to choose between any of them. What I really wanted was for that situation to never, ever arise again, for none of us to be put in the position where my family had split along the fault lines of misplaced loyalties and short-sighted decision-making. Unrealistic? Of course it was, given our dystopian reality.

"Jesus." He shook his head. "You're such a kid."

I froze. It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did; after all, I _was_ young. But where most people would say it lovingly, teasingly, - _Oh, you've got a lot to learn, sweetheart_ \- Daryl fairly spat it out at me. As though my youth were a transgression, a shortcoming, a flaw. As though because I was just twenty-two, I could not understand love or sacrifice. Or pain.

I hadn't expected that from him. So what was I, then? Nothing, bitch, or kid? His expression hardened, and up went the wall. "Fuck you," I muttered. That's what a kid would do, right? Fire off an expletive, sullenly stalk off to find a more sympathetic adult? I found one several yards away. "Do you think this is going to work?" I asked Michonne, helping her to heave a bag into the back of the SUV.

She stepped back slightly, gaze shifting over my shoulder to where Daryl was still adjusting items on his bike, resolutely avoiding my existence. "He didn't do it," she said quietly, reaching out to squeeze my arm. "He was trapped. Same as you in that closet. He was scared. We all are."

Fear, I understood. Grief, I knew that well. But that awareness did nothing to assuage the ache inside; the way I felt scraped raw when memory brushed against those words. I was tired of it, having spent the night tracing the shape of them, the ragged edge of what might have been. Glancing down at the bag in my hands, I repeated my question.

"Even if it doesn't," Michonne said with a resigned sigh, "then at least we can get away. We can start over someplace else."

"With the people who want to kill you," I mumbled, shoving a small laundry basket haphazardly in beside the other bags. God, if we survived this, unpacking these vehicles and settling back into the prison was going to be a bitch.

"With the desperate people who wanted to protect _you_ and the others," she corrected firmly. "Christ, Riley, it was a terrible situation, and I'm glad it ended differently than they planned, but you need to forgive or forget. "

"Why?" I hissed. "Why do I have to? Why does everyone around here think they know what's best for me? Daryl and Rick were willing to _sacrifice_ you, Mich! Kill you. Offer you up to him on a silver freaking platter."

She gave me a wan smile. "I know. But they didn't. They considered it, for a while, and then they realized they were wrong. It didn't happen. Just like when you and Daryl came back. You considered it, realized you were wrong, and then you came back."

How could she be so reasonable about the whole thing? Yes, Rick had decided against it, but they had weighed the odds just the same. The absolute wrongness of the situation chilled me again and again, as thoughts crept unbidden to my tired mind: what _had_ happened to them in the months we'd been apart? I thought I had rejoined a stronger group, but perhaps they were just colder now. Maybe their resolution was not a sign of resilience, but bitterness.

The world demanded choices, I'd learned that well months before. And now Michonne was offering me another pair: forgive or forget. Preferably, I knew, she wanted me to do both, for reasons I couldn't quite understand. The events of the past few weeks were so damn heavy, and yet I was not ready to put them down. I wanted to weigh them, coddle them a little, get to know them: Woodbury, the confrontation with the Governor, turning my back on my family and coming home to war and confusion.

And the plan.

The plan, which was all I decided to focus on for the time being, shifting my burdens and weighty thoughts to another mental compartment. Just for now.

The plan involved, in its most extreme case, our escape, but with a few provisions for remaining - or, at the very least, dissuading the Governor from pursuing us. Our cellblock and the cafeteria had been emptied completely, and our vehicles would be hidden in the woods, giving the clear appearance that we were long gone, in the night. As far as the Governor would be concerned, we could be in Senoia or Macon or on our way out of state.

Deeper within the prison, though, there'd be a few surprises lined up: smoke grenades secreted within the Tombs - the lower level corridors that had seen Lori and T-Dog's death and that Carol had been forced to languish in during the chaos of those first few days of claiming the prison. Those smoke grenades would disorient the Governor and his cronies, leaving them unsure of where to run when the walkers started getting stirred up, as they inevitably would.

If they made it back out, we'd be waiting for them, there on the outside of the prison fence. We could fire off a few shots, enough to give them some vivid nightmares, and then we'd leave. A rendezvous spot at a town about twenty miles east had been circled on several maps and distributed to each group, just in case. The location we were aiming for was secure, with a nondescript exterior, ridiculously spacious, and with a wooded area nearby for us to conceal the vehicles.

I couldn't wait to get back to the foam pits.

Rick had said there might be a chance we could stay. If the Governor died or surrendered, and we could rest easy in the knowledge that Woodbury would leave us and the prison alone, then we could stay or at least weigh the prison as a viable option. Our main goal today, though, was not to go out like scared rabbits, but rather to leave the road smoking in our wake.

Once most of the vehicles had been packed up, I drove the SUV and its occupants down to the end of the prison road, nosing in to a little cowpath leading through the woods. The brush was still thick enough, despite the crisp weather, to conceal the vehicle, for the most part, but Beth, Carl, and I did spend a bit of time with some machetes cutting down some extra branches and saplings to cover them more thoroughly.

Four of us - Beth, Hershel, Carl, and myself - went to a small copse of trees several yards away from this point. We'd have a clear vantage point on the prison, enough to see if we needed backup or if things went completely to shit and we needed to get out. At Hershel's insistence only, I was joining them. "Your ankle is unreliable," he'd pointed out earlier this morning, ticking off my lovely inventory of injuries at the same time. "You have stitches on your legs and your head; you have substantial bruising that's still in the process of healing. If you go out there with them and any one of those things gives out or up, you're dead, sweetheart, and anyone who tries to help you will be dead too."

When fired up, Hershel Greene had the kind of bearing that made me wonder how Maggie had ever managed to sneak out to parties or talk back to her father. Meekly, I'd agreed to his demands, but even so, I crouched behind some bushes with the Remington ready to go and a mutinous expression on my face that I dearly hoped he caught.

We didn't have to wait long, and though I knew it had been coming, the sight of those military vehicles (how _had_ he gotten access to those?) barrelling up our road still sent chills down my spine. I tightened my grip on the gun, but there was really nothing I could do, not from this distance, not with the chaos that was about to ensue.

Judith was safe inside the SUV for the moment; Carol had climbed in beside her. Maybe she could even have a nap, I thought idly…

And then watched as they took out three of our towers with something big and automatic mounted on one of the trucks.

No nap today, then.

It seemed to be happening somewhere else, the whole scene before us. A TV screen, perhaps, or in a movie theatre. This was the sort of thing that actors had to deal with, not us. Not a veterinarian and three kids, hiding in the woods. The guard towers exploded in a fiery cascade of concrete and glass, and the trucks kept going, pounding through our gates as though they were made of rubber, rolling over the remains with nary a wobble on their wheels. It all went to shit, though, once they hit the barbed wire platforms, which busted most of the tires and sent them grinding to a halt.

"Oh, my gosh," muttered Beth beside me, watching this all unfold with huge eyes. I loosened my grip on the rifle to squeeze her shoulder comfortingly. It would be fine. It had to be fine.

The whole force of them headed inside our cellblock, guns at the ready. I tried to picture the scene within: they were probably overturning our makeshift tables, ripping apart the mattresses we'd left behind. He was furious, I was sure - his rage growing with each empty cell, each additional sign that we'd made it out, that we'd scarpered right under his nose.

When our cellblock was officially declared abandoned, they would move further into the prison, leading naturally to the Tombs. Past the warden's office, down the stairs...they'd have a few moments of peace and quiet, and then one of them would nudge a stray grenade in the dark, and the rest would pop eagerly to life with flashes and curls of acrid smoke. That would confuse and agitate the walkers; there would be a stampede for the stairs, for the safety of the yard and their trucks.

"How much longer?" Carl asked, hands tense on his gun.

"Can't be too much," I guessed. "Once they find the walkers, they'll be getting out of there as soon as they can, I'd imagine."

Another fifteen minutes or so inched by, and then half of Woodbury came bursting through the cellblock door. "Okay," I murmured, finger on the trigger. "Okay."

Really, though, I had nothing to do. Maggie and Glenn had prepared themselves behind the pallet barricades on the exterior catwalks, dressed in full riot gear and armed to the teeth. The element of surprise was to their benefit as well, and the sudden volley of gunfire from two separate points just added to the mayhem brewing in the yard. Several people ran for the trucks, panicked and screaming as they went. I watched as Martinez had to physically bundle the Governor into the lead one - he didn't want to leave unfinished. I knew. It was burning him right up.

The convoy came hurtling back down the road whence they had come, driving out with their tails between their legs, frightened as hell of those crazy-ass prison people. Rick's people, for good or ill. I kept my finger on the trigger even as I swivelled around, hoping that the Governor would see the sheen of my rifle through the leaves and would come half-cocked for a fight. I wanted to see him fall, for the pain he had caused my family; for what he had done to Maggie in the dark. For leaving Merle like that, for it had surely been him.

It never came, though, and that was for the best. We all exhaled, sighing in collective relief, and began the business of readying the SUV for the victorious drive back up the hill. Judith was still, somehow, asleep in Carol's arms, who looked at us with panic bright in her eyes. "Are we heading back?" she asked, as I slid behind the wheel. I nodded, smiling.

Beth was just walking around my side of the vehicle when she froze, and my own heart stopped. Walker? Governor? What? She turned back towards Carl and her father, and through the windshield I gazed at the little boy from the quarry, the kid who'd just always been there, growing up too fast, the child who had had to kill his own suffering mother, and I watched him shoot dead a kid from Woodbury, a kid who was relinquishing at Hershel's firm but not unkind demand to put down his own gun. A kid who was scared, a boy who shouldn't have been out there at all.

He fell to the ground and bile rose in my throat, hot and sour. There was no reason for Carl to shoot him, but he had. Dry-mouthed, I snapped at Beth to get in; watched numbly as Hershel pushed a quiet, pale, trembling boy into the passenger seat beside me, and slammed on the gas with an anger I couldn't even begin to articulate.

We pulled up to the prison yard in silence, none of us knowing what should be said. That was Rick's job, I decided. Not mine. I wasn't Carl's mother, his sister...I was just the girl who slept a few cells down, the girl who would forever have that boy's blue eyes straining her memory, the girl who would forever have that boy's blue eyes emblazoned on her memory, the girl who would have to work damn hard to forgive Carl for that stranger's death.

I grabbed a few things from the back of the SUV to help Carol out, and then followed Beth and Hershel in through the side door access to the cafeteria. The rest of the group had already made their way inside, and judging from the snippets of conversation that I heard as I busied myself with the currently unnecessary task of settling back in. "Hey." I jumped when his voice curled out from the shadows. "You good?"

"Fine," I said, but the lie was not forgiveness. "You?"

His face softened at my inquiry, and he nodded, hand twitching at his side. Did he want to reach out, I wondered? Not long ago, this kind of interaction would've been actually quite thrilling - but now I was ensnared between those moments in the field, when I'd seen him at his most vulnerable, and now, in the aftermath of our fight and the battle and those blue eyes. I felt my resolve and my anger falter a little, and now I _really_ wasn't sure what this was. I hadn't lost respect for him, not at all, but the sounds of "nothing" and "bitch" were still there, bringing me up short especially when I considered how naturally "love" had tripped from my tongue. His words and sentiments had come from somewhere, and, like a simmering acid, they had begun to bite at me.

I liked him a lot, to put it simply. But I'd seen another element to him there, something I hadn't even seen on the Atlanta rooftop. I saw his heart break, for sure and for certain, and that had exposed him in such an intimate way that it was overwhelming me even now, combined as it was with Carl's cold-blooded reaction back there in the woods.

For a fleeting moment, I wished those words had never been said, the whole shit with Michonne had never gone down, and that we were the type of people that could take a few more steps toward each other - that he would feel able to pull me into an embrace, tell me clearly how glad he was that I was okay.

But he wasn't. And those things had happened, so I just watched him walk out towards the yard.

"I'm going with you!" Over my shoulder, I saw Carl stomping away from his father, who was simply left horrified in his wake.

So we were going to Woodbury.

"That kid was scared," Hershel said heavily. I didn't want to hear this; couldn't relive this. "He was handing his gun over."

Rick hesitated before answering, and I read in his silence a crumbling surety that Hershel was wrong, mistaken, because Carl could never do something like that. "He said he drew." Hershel shook his head gravely. "Carl said it was in defence," Rick countered slowly.

"I was there. He didn't have to shoot."

Rick caught my eye. "Riley?"

A vindictive longing rose within me. _Karma_ , I thought briefly. The universe's subtle retribution for what he had tried to do to Michonne. But old love and respect filtered in through the cracks in my smouldering fury, and the instinct to dither or even outright lie fanned inside me, at the sight of Rick's uncertain, hopeful expression. It would've been easy, just to offer him a different angle on the matter, enough to abate his concern for now and put the whole issue on the back burner. But those blue eyes in the woods were piercing mine, tangling with the image of another pair - just as blue, just as scared - and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I sighed. I breathed forgiveness to life, and I broke Rick's heart. "I'm sorry. The kid was trying to hand his gun over...Carl chose to do it, and he didn't have to." Rick looked away.

Hershel wasn't done yet, though. "He had every reason not to -"

"Maybe it looked like that to you," Rick snapped, rounding on him, but Hershel cut him off with a shout of his name that made both of us jump.

"I'm telling you," he added after a beat, quieter this time, "he gunned that kid down."

Rick's face fell, but there was nothing I could do for him. Carl's actions were his and his alone, not even Rick's, and in the aftermath of this attack, we had much bigger fish to fry. It worried me that, at such a tender age, Carl was already able to easily give in to a sense of bloodlust, but I wasn't exactly qualified in either the psychology or the parenting department to be dispensing any advice. So I just grabbed Rick's hand for a brief moment, and hoped that said everything I could not.

* * *

"You coming with?" Michonne asked as we stood together, surveying the damage from the Governor's attack. If we were going to stay here - and conversations were firmly pointed in that direction - we would need to repair those gates and the fencing as soon as possible, and see about doing something to the guard towers. They'd taken out three, but the mosts and main structures were still standing...if we were able to find some sort of staging or something, maybe we could rebuild a sort of wooden lookout on top.

"Riley? Hey?"

She shook my shoulder gently, my good one, and I snapped back to the present. It had been swiftly decided that a small group would head out to Woodbury, aiming to finish what we'd started here. I didn't like the idea of re-engaging their forces, not when we'd just been so successful, but watching them blow the holy hell out of our home had enraged me in such a fundamental way that seeking out another fight, finishing everything and winning our freedom - that was vastly more appealing than hiding again, or running away.

This place was worth it.

"Yeah, I'll come," I muttered. "Just don't tell Hershel."

I helped her pack ups a few things into the truck, tucking a Glock into my jeans and sheathing my knife carefully. She loaded up the vehicle with a couple of rifles, taking a bag of something from Daryl, who pulled his bike around to park next to us as we waited for Rick to finish a conversation with a dejected Carl, who was watching our busyness with envy. Rick had refused to let him go with us. I looked away.

By the time we'd finished packing up the truck with an assortment of weapons, Glenn and Maggie had come down to join us, bearing regretful expressions and a few more guns. "Rick," Glenn said, as he walked back over to us. "We're staying. We don't know where the Governor is. If he comes back, we'll hold him off." It made solid sense, and I was glad to think that the remaining inmates wouldn't be alone or undefended. Maggie and Glenn were both good shots.

"Just the four of us?" Daryl interjected, slinging a rifle across his back. "All right." It was impossible to tell if he was pissed off or relieved, and I suppose it didn't really matter. We were all making choices today, and none of us had any real right to judge another for theirs.

"I appreciate you staying," Rick said, and Glenn nodded at this, offering a weary smile in return.

Beth and Carol had busied themselves with taking care of some eager walkers at the interior gate, thus clearing something of a path for us as we proceeded. Glenn and Maggie heaved the broken gate (which had been merely propped up against the fence) aside for us to pull through. Daryl led the way, alone on his bike, riding through the gate and down the hill with one foot dragging on the road, likely to keep him fairly steady on the uneven terrain and sweeping curve.

We flew down the windswept prison road, encountering little disturbance and only a handful of walkers, which we simply ignored. Fall had arrived in full force over the past couple of days, and the Georgia landscape had been dully varnished. After about twenty minutes, we reached the farm-heavy expanse between the two residential areas, roughly where the feed store had been located. Daryl had set the course for Woodbury today and I figured he wasn't eager to return to Logan Road; I couldn't blame him.

Up ahead, we could see some of the military-grade vehicles that the Governor had brought to our door. They were parked askew on the road, and nearby, a few walkers hunched over some forms laying on the pavement and grass. Had they succumbed to some of their injuries? Had they gotten into an accident?

The walkers didn't really notice us until there was a bolt between their eyes or a katana through their neck. I took care of a couple, mainly the ones preoccupied with eating, shoving my knife into their temples and disengaging as quickly as possible. Probably a good dozen or so of them were actually active; the rest of the bodies numbered well into the twenties. It looked as though every Woodburian who had participated in the attack was dead in front of us - in some way, shape, or form.

We surveyed the scene together, trying to piece a story together that could somehow explain how things had changed so quickly, within the space of no more than a few hours. I opened my mouth to suggest an accident, but before I could get the words out, there came a loud _bang_ from the truck window directly behind Daryl, jolting us all into defensive poses. There, hands pressed against the glass, a terrified woman looked out at us.

Rick raised his gun, and Daryl reached up to unlock the door, Bowie knife still in hand. The dark-haired woman emerged, stepping down carefully, even as Daryl shoved her slightly to hurry her up. I couldn't name her, not right away, but her face was definitely familiar from my time in the town. Perhaps she'd worked in the pantry? As one of the logistics officers, I'd spent plenty of time in there.

Daryl slammed the truck door shut and Rick lowered his gun as we approached her. She was frightened, but unharmed, and when her eyes found mine, her whole face relaxed. "Riley, I'm so glad to — "

"Don't talk to her," Daryl growled, stepping in front of me, as though she'd been about to politely drive a knife through my face. "What the hell happened here?" I stepped back around him, flashing a glare in his direction.

Woodbury's forces had left the prison in a mad panic, as we'd suspected. The Governor hadn't been happy with the way his troops had fallen back, despite his orders to stand down. "He stopped the convoy," she told us tearfully. "And he just started shooting everyone."

Karen — her name came back to me as she wept in front of us — had survived by pulling a body shot through the head on top of her, by playing dead when the Governor inspected his bloody work. "And then I heard them drive off. I waited a while, and then I got into the truck and I just...I waited…" She finished with a sob, and despite the fact that Rick tensed as I did so, I pushed gently past him to reach out my arms to her. I'd never been much of a hugger before this, but the only thing Karen needed right now was forgiveness, and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to give it to her.

"He twisted them against us," I said quietly, looking over at Rick as I held the weeping woman in my arms. "Our fight was never with his people."

A lot of things in my life had changed, but one thing just couldn't die, not even in this new world: the profound, utter pleasure I took in being right. I watched as concession dashed across Rick's face, and I smiled in receipt.

He'd probably killed his militia to blame it on us, we decided, as we worked together to formulate a new plan. But returning to Woodbury with no citizens could backfire pretty damn quickly. "It would demonize us, but it wouldn't necessarily inspire the survivors," I pointed out, helping Karen into the truck. She was still shaking, still apologizing profusely. I shut the door gently behind her.

Michonne nodded. "He may not even have gone back to Woodbury."

We decided to keep going with our original plan, assuming that the Governor was still there and that the town was still against us. If, as Michonne suspected, the Governor was not there and had abandoned his remaining people, then we could pursue with some form of negotiation — ideally, this time it would be far more successful than our previous attempts.

The day was fading fast, by the time we'd finally all agreed on the plan and had loaded up again ready to go. Daryl gingerly navigated the graveyard of walkers and corpses, and the truck followed close behind. Within, Karen and I were squeezed together, her hands gripping mine tightly, desperately. I felt sorry for her, and she seemed to get some comfort from my presence, perhaps because to her, I had successfully managed the transition from Woodbury citizen to prison inmate, something that now, she likely hoped to accomplish.

Every passing second brought us closer to Woodbury, and heightened the extreme sense of panic currently flooding my veins. The sense of dread was overwhelming, as I tried to avoid picturing the kind of welcome we'd receive: we were enemies no matter what, and even if the Governor wasn't there, we would have a tough road ahead of us in convincing those who remained that weren't actually all that bad — all things considered.

The last time I'd been within Woodbury's walls, I'd been imprisoned against my will, beaten nearly to a pulp, lied to and manipulated for such a long time. Coming back now felt so different, as though years had passed rather than weeks. When I had last been here, Merle had been alive; Andrea had been my friend; and Daryl and the others had been nothing but a small, secret, flickering hope.

It was fully dark, past nine o'clock I'm sure, by the time we made it to the outskirts of Woodbury. We'd parked the vehicles about a mile out, down and around a side street. Approaching through the woods nearby, it was clear that there wasn't much going on within the walls: the area was silent, still.

Karen came with us, partially because she wasn't willing to remain alone back in the truck and because I suggested to Rick that she could be a useful element in gaining entrance: "If it's just ordinary people in there and they can see that we haven't hurt her, they'll be more likely to trust us."

Now, we moved stealthily in a line around the maze of vehicles parked haphazardly around Woodbury's perimeter. I had gained the surrounding step of a gazebo I'd never noticed before, and was following Michonne towards a line of cars near the front gates when the first shots rang out. Obviously, they'd left someone on guard duty.

Rick and Daryl fired back, while I pulled Karen down behind the closest car. The other three followed, Rick edging out ahead to continue shooting. The rapid volley of gunfire was resounding in my ears, but I managed to pop off a few shots of my own by poking my head up through one of the broken windows. Behind me, Michonne briefly rested her gun on the trunk lid to fire off more rounds, ducking down quickly after the responding fire.

"Tyreese!"

 _Jesus._ Karen was trying to stand, hollering out to whoever she thought was on guard duty. "It's me, don't sh — "

"Get down!" Rick reached up to yank her firmly down to the ground.

In the hush that followed, I counted our odds, the grimmest kind of math. How likely was it, I wondered dully, that we would survive now? Two minutes in and we were already firing at each other, and Karen's cry could turn this into a hostage situation in less time than that. "Karen?" a deep, male voice replied from the ramparts. "Karen, are you okay?"

Faster than Rick could reach for her, Karen slipped out from behind the car to stand in the middle of the road, hands held high. "I'm fine!"

"Where's the Governor?" the guard asked.

Karen swallowed, hard. "He fired on everyone. He killed them all."

A stunned silence was the only reply. Daryl crawled around my back, gun still in hand, inching closer to Rick, covering us from any potential fire from another position. Now that Karen was further away from us, the guards might just decide to fire sporadically. "Why are you with them?" The man's voice was strained, as though he was struggling to process everything. That was understandable.

Tearfully, Karen replied that we had saved her. "We're coming out," Rick said, in the wake of this particular revelation. Daryl made an angry noise of dissent, but Rick just ignored him. "We're coming out!"

Rick stepped out first, around the hood of the car — gun holstered and hands up in the air, a clear sign of surrender. I followed behind, slinging the rifle carefully across my shoulders before standing. Daryl hurried around the back side of the car, gun raised; after a sharp look from Rick, he raised his own hands indignantly.

As a group, we moved slowly towards the front gates, watching as they creaked open a few seconds later. Two guards emerged, both armed, both obviously uncertain about how to proceed. I guessed their boss hadn't prepared for them for this. "What are you doing here?" the first guard, a tall, burly black man, asked.

"We were coming to finish this," Rick said in an impressive show of honesty, "until we saw what the Governor did."

"H-He killed everyone?" the man — Tyreese, it seemed — asked hoarsely.

Rick seemed to take forever to respond, but perhaps he too was still having trouble wrapping his mind around what the Governor had done to his own people, simply for being scared. "Yeah," he nodded. "Karen told us that Andrea hopped the wall, going for the prison. She never made it."

Maybe she'd been waylaid, had holed up in a local house or…I licked my lips nervously, my mouth suddenly dry. The other option was too sinister to think about right now. Andrea had enjoyed a good relationship with the Governor for a long time, but was it possible that things had changed between them, as well? Had he disapproved of her efforts to make peace between our groups? I recalled the defeated expression she had worn when stomping out of the barn that day, the way the Governor had silently loaded up his people, they way she'd just snapped to attention when he emerged from the barn.

"She might be here," Rick was saying, and Tyreese nodded, agreeing to grant us entrance and help us look for her. The woman standing guard with him offered to stay on the wall, closing the doors behind us.

Woodbury was deathly quiet as we made our way through the streets. Memories of trying to think of this place as home made me feel sick. Michonne seemed to share my sentiments, reaching out a comforting hand once we'd reached the cover of some of an alleyway. Together, we filed down the long corridor, her hand wrapped firmly in mine, only stopping once we'd reached a set of doors at the far end. Rick wrenched them open, telling Tyreese that the Governor had once held Glenn and Maggie somewhere behind them.

"The Governor held people here?" Tyreese asked incredulously.

Daryl raised his gun as we rounded the corner of another hallway beyond. "Did more than hold 'em."

Michonne dropped my hand so that we too could prepare our guns. There was no real way of knowing what we would find down here. Although this new urge to find Andrea was strong and insistent, a larger part of me hoped that the room would be empty, that Andrea was simply just holed up somewhere, safe and sound, waiting for us to find her.

This second hallway was far shorter than the alleyway we'd just traversed, so after just a few steps, we could all plainly see the sight that made Rick Grimes stop short, lower his gun. In front of us was a metal door with a small, angry pool of blood seeping out from beneath it. A simple sliding latch was the only thing barring it.

Dread filled my veins like ice, chilling me so badly that all I wanted was to run away, off somewhere else, because the one thing I hadn't considered, the one heartbreak I hadn't prepared myself for — the most devastating thing I could imagine in this moment was likely behind that door. A sob bubbled up in my throat, but I managed to keep it down, aimed my gun and stood by Michonne's side. We would face this together. We owed her that much.

Michonne asked Rick to open the door. He nodded, raising his Python as Daryl shifted on his feet, agitated. "One…" Rick whispered, "two…"

 _Three_ was an open door, Milton's body bloody on the ground in front of us, two bare feet to the left of the opening. "Andrea!" The katana and my rifle clattered uselessly to the floor as Michonne and I dashed inside the room.

Her blonde hair was slick with blood and sweat, her gaze vacant but still alive. "I tried to stop them," she murmured, as Rick knelt beside me. She leaned her weight into Michonne, but one hand managed to rest on my knee, a sign that she knew we were both there with her.

"You're burning up." Michonne was right — the heat rolling off of Andrea's body could only mean one thing. Though she didn't have to, though I could've lived the rest of my life without the image imprinted in my mind, Andrea gingerly pulled back the collar of her jacket and the shirt beneath it, revealing a vicious, bleeding bite to her neck. I choked on the sob, let it come, let it be what it was.

"Judith," she groaned. "Carl…the rest of them…"

"Us," Rick corrected, eyes shining. "The rest of _us_."

"Are they alive?"

They were, Rick told her, and she smiled around at all of us. Because that's all she'd wanted, all she'd ever wanted. That's all she'd ever tried to do, but we'd been so angry and afraid that we'd lost sight of that.

Michonne was stroking her hair; there was nothing else we could do for her now. A bite to the neck was a death sentence any way you looked at it. No amputation was possible. "It's good that you found them," Andrea said softly, looking between Michonne and I. "No one can make it alone now."

I pressed my face into her blood-streaked hair as I wept, another strike of pain burning me alive as Daryl agreed with her: "I never could," he said, grief biting his words too.

A long time ago, we'd been three women lost in the woods, ambling towards nothing, but together. A long time ago, we'd slept on cold floors, eaten from cold cans, and warmed each other with stories and jokes from our lives before. A long time ago, the women I sat with now had been my entire world, the only voices I heard for months on end. Those months had been hard, just like I'd told Maggie, but they had also been good. For every nightmare I had about Daryl's rejection or Lori's jeering, I had Michonne or Andrea's reassurance and comfort; every panic attack had bought an embrace, a tender word, some maternal reassurance you never know you're craving until it's over.

I'd gotten plenty irritated with Andrea numerous times throughout our relationship. In fact, everyone in the room with us now had, too. But holding her there, feeling her heartbeat weakening within our twined arms, Michonne and I shared something far more intimate than even Daryl's breakdown over Merle had been, there with Andrea. There was nothing we could do; we hadn't just been too late. We'd been wrong.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I sobbed. This was my fault, this was all my fault. If I'd worked harder to make her see; if I hadn't valued my own ego out there in the prison yard, more than I'd valued her…if I hadn't, if I hadn't.

"Oh, Riley, sweetheart," she whispered. "Don't, please. You have nothing to… I just…I just didn't want anyone to die."

I had once thought that Andrea wasn't suited to this world, that her vanity and impulsiveness would be her undoing. In a way, I was right, but I was also terribly, terribly incorrect: she was built for this world, she'd just tried to build it up with the wrong people. She looked around at us one more time, a benediction and a goodbye all in one. "I can do it myself," she said slowly.

"No!" Michonne tightened her grip.

"I have to," she insisted. "While I still can." Michonne's lip trembled and any semblance of resolve she had collapsed as she nodded in agreement. This was Andrea's last request, and the very least thing we could possibly do for her now would be to honour it.

"Please?" Andrea turned to Rick, eyes heavy and sad. "I know how the safety works." It was an old, unfunny joke, taking us back to the day Amy died, when she'd held him off from her sister's dead body with a gun. Rick's jaw tensed in response, and he reluctantly handed over his pistol, pressing it gently into Andrea's bloody hands.

How could this be happening, I wondered frantically? How could this be happening to us? The fissures along which our friendship broke didn't seem so wide or treacherous now, in the dim light of this tomb, and I was amazed we'd fallen out at all. How could we have, when we had survived the whole winter together? How could we have broken, have cracked wide along the fault lines of good intentions?

"Well," Michonne said, her voice trembling in a strange, new way. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Me neither." I wiped furiously at my eyes. We would not leave her, she would not be alone down here for another second. And when I got the chance, I'd kill him for this. I'd tear him to pieces.

Andrea looked at Michonne, then at me, and then finally at Daryl and Rick. "I tried," she breathed, pain wracking every note.

"Yeah," Rick whispered. "You did." He shuffled to his feet. "You did."

Quietly, he and Daryl filed back out into the hallway, gently closing the door behind them. This was our moment, our private goodbye, just the three of us. That's the way it had been for a long time, and that was the way they knew we wanted it now. "I'm sorry," I murmured one last time, selfish until the end, because I craved her forgiveness. I craved her absolution. She gave it to me in a kiss, feathery on my temple, and a smile I could call my very own.

Winter ended; spring came with the sound of a bullet, the rattle of a casing hitting the floor, and a limp body in our arms. I cried soundlessly, Michonne easing her from my hands and I wrenched open the door, my hands slippery with blood and tears. I couldn't breathe; I couldn't think. I fairly stumbled into him — he'd stood at the sound of the door opening, and as though it were the most natural, least surprising thing in the world, he pulled me into his embrace. I wept into his chest, grasping the front of his shirt with manic hands because I could not bear it, I could not bear it, I could not bear it.


	22. A Prettier Burn

_**Chapter XXII: A Prettier Burn**_

The poster wasn't exactly my aesthetic, and I tried to politely explain that to Beth. She'd come bearing her prizes from the recent run to the local Dollar$mart, offering out an assortment of chintzy décor pieces that Julia, one of the Woodbury women, had thought might brighten up our cells.

"I mean, I'm glad the kitten wants me to 'hang in there,' don't get me wrong, but…" Her face started to fall at my words, and I sighed. "Do you think it will look better on this wall or the back one?"

After an hour and a beer, that cat was looking better. I even caught myself smiling at the way it made my cramped little cell start to feel more like somebody's home. Maybe not mine, not yet, but somebody's. The purple duvet and the sheets with yellow flowers that now made up my bed, those helped too. I mean, it was actually a really cute kitten, and I say that not even as a cat person…

"What the hell are you doing?"

Okay, maybe it was four beer.

Daryl stood in the doorway, a disbelieving smirk on his face, staring at me staring way too intensely at this goddamn cat poster. "Just hanging in there," I murmured, falling back into the comfort of my pillows. "Like he said to —" and I jerked my thumb over at the far wall.

Examining our newest addition, Daryl obviously found it lacking in his taste, judging by the expression of abject disgust that flashed across his face. "How many you had?" he asked, carefully leaning his crossbow in its usual corner and then sitting cross-legged down on the floor.

I gestured idly to my little stack of dead soldiers, smiling warmly as I did. "That."

"Jesus, you can't hold anything, can you?" He worried at his lip, and I'm sure he was catching on to the pattern.

In the seven weeks since Andrea's death, I'd found some amount of comfort in a variety of bottles. We'd made a run early on to a local grocery store, and I'd picked up a few beer from the liquor section at the request of a few Woodbury people. Daryl hadn't minded — we'd even stowed a twofer under my bunk, sharing a can or two of an evening. I liked the slight buzz I got, the warmth in my fingertips, the way my sense of humour seemed sharper, more enjoyable. I could laugh at shit again, when I was drunk.

I found that wine helped even more, even though drinking it from a chipped coffee mug felt a little less than elegant. Daryl didn't like the batch, said it was too sweet, but I wasn't drinking it for the flavour, so I started capping off our nightcaps with a cup or two of that. I woke with pounding headaches, a fuzzy mouth, and a stellar disposition, but I didn't care. All day long, as I worked to clear other cellblocks, helped Carol organize supply rotations and replenishment lists, as I headed out into the woods with Daryl in the hopes of bagging an errant deer or at least a couple of squirrels — I whiled away those hours thinking of the evening, when the two of us would leave the cafeteria or the prison yard or the warden's office, and we'd crack open a lukewarm one or I'd pour out some of the wine, and we'd smoke and talk and skirt around everything that made me want to cry.

But four beer wasn't enough to make me drunk — the whisky I'd secreted in a shoebox under my bed, that had done it. I loved that fire, the way it crawled its way down my throat, scoring it every inch of the way with the pain I so richly deserved. Whisky was a punishment; everything else a muffling balm.

"You good?" he said now, untying the laces of his boots. "Carol said you didn't eat much."

I shrugged. "Fine. Just wasn't feeling the ramen tonight." In truth, it was the bustling cafeteria I wasn't feeling. Our numbers were now firmly into the twenties; very close to the thirties. After the fall of Woodbury, we'd brought back with us the remaining citizens, and the prison was, by all accounts, flourishing as a result. We even had a medical doctor now, which took a considerable load from Hershel's shoulders. Many of their supplies and resources had come with them, which meant we were very well stocked for the oncoming winter.

It had changed the tenor of our home, though. The Woodbury people were used to a different kind of living environment, and many of them were struggling with the notion of living in prison cells. We'd had to scramble to create some sort of council situation, a group headed by Hershel and consisting of Glenn, Carol, Daryl, and Sasha — Tyreese's sister and the female guard from the night of the battle. She was there to represent Woodbury, but she also possessed a keen, cool head, and that was incredibly useful when attempting to defuse tense situations between the two slowly-melding groups.

"I think Beth is dating Zach, or whatever you would call it in here," I murmured, closing my eyes within the warm cocoon of my buzz. "Kind of cute, actually." It _was_ sweet, to be honest. Watching two people stumble around burgeoning feelings for each other; Zach tended to stutter when he was in her presence, and Beth had started taking extra care with her elaborately- braided hairstyles. It was like a throwback to rituals of old, in a way, and it reminded me that we were now beginning to enter a new phase of survival: living. When people had time to flirt, to make friends, to indulge in stupid, petty jealousies over whose standard-sized jail cell was more spacious (an issue Sasha and Carol had been working hard this morning to resolve, between a Woodbury man named Tony and a new prison member called Jamie).

Zach was a young guy, about a year or so Beth's senior. He had come in just two and a half weeks ago after Daryl took a run with a small group to the residential neighbourhood nearby. They'd been looking mainly for medications and clothing, both things being in short supply now that our prison group was growing. Zach and four other men had been holed up in the upper level of one of the homes there, and they were beginning to struggle. From Macon, they'd been trying to navigate their way down towards Atlanta, hoping there might be some sort of refugee facility still standing. They were sorely disappointed when Daryl and Maggie encountered them, and told them the city had fallen a long time ago. But they brought them back, after asking the three questions.

 _How many walkers have you killed?_

 _How many people have you killed?_

 _Why?_

Rick had established the three questions as a gateway of sorts to our new community. The walker question hit at their skill level, and gave us a sense of how they'd been living up to this point. If they'd killed tons, they were either lying or they'd been living rough, meaning that they might chafe under our rules and expectations, or that they'd be an incredible asset to us in terms of supply runs and defence.

The people question was a bit more intense. Not many of us now had gotten to this point without shedding blood, but if you could defend it, or at least explain it, then Rick decided that was enough. I wasn't sure if I had killed anyone, not really. The fight at Woodbury had seen me aim a few shots, but I hadn't stuck around long enough to see if any of them had been fatal. So unless you counted my culpability in the deaths of Chloe, RJ, and Andrea, which I certainly did, I wouldn't have an answer to that question, I guess.

"Huh," Daryl replied noncommittally, and I should have known he wouldn't care. Despite the fact that Zach utterly idolized him, Daryl didn't seem to take much of an interest in how the Woodbury people, or the new people he had started bringing home from runs, were getting on. He really did care about their wellbeing, don't get me wrong, but only insofar as that concerned their safety, being fed, and being accepted by the rest of our community. Everything else they chose to do — hobbies, jobs, romantic assignations — that didn't concern him.

He lit up a cigarette, and as usual, I made my way down to the floor to join him. Carol didn't approve of us smoking in our cell, so we always made sure to do it when she was either working or eating. We probably shouldn't have been; it made our blankets smell acrid and old, and the ventilation wasn't the greatest, but a new, deep chill had entered the air outside and it just wasn't as pleasant anymore to sit out on the icy cold bleachers every night. We still shared one, which made me smile, because we went through two in a sitting anyway — we weren't really conserving our supply. But it was nice to have a routine, a special little ritual in the course of our busy, busy days that belonged only to us. "Michonne wants to head out in two days," he said quietly, fingers brushing mine as I accepted the proffered cigarette.

It had been nearly a week since we'd returned; I should've figured it was time to head out again. With winter approaching, we had to be more sensible about our expeditions, realizing that in a few short weeks, we'd be losing most of our light. Finding the Governor's trail would get more and more difficult. "We have to keep up with it," Michonne had insisted during our last trip. "The trail's gonna die soon; we can't lose it."

In the days following Andrea's death, Michonne, Daryl, and I had begun to put our heads together to track the Governor, along with the few men Karen had told us he hadn't killed during his massacre of the Woodbury militia. There in the dark of his torture chamber, I had sworn I would kill him for what he had done to Andrea, and I had sorely meant it. I chose not to share that particular element of my plan with my co-conspirators, but that was indeed the crux of it. We would find him, and we would kill him.

Daryl simply wanted it finished, to put to bed the threat of the Governor returning; Michonne's plans were a little murkier, but I strongly suspected ours would line up. We'd now been out twice, mapping out the area surrounding the prison and Woodbury, combing the woods for any clues or indications of where he had gone. They'd departed in a truck, we knew that well, but we chose to do most of our work on foot. Michonne and I often took out one of the smaller cars, loaded up with our supplies, and Daryl rode his bike. At night, we'd sleep in the car, one of us stretched out in the back, the other reclining in the passenger seat, and the watcher wide awake at the wheel. It was a good system, a solid plan, and so far, though we didn't have a tremendous amount of success, it was going well. We'd been able to shut down a few possibilities in terms of directionality, which, as Daryl pointed out, gave us just as much information as if we'd actually found his trail.

The main problem, however, was that we didn't understand our quarry. Philip Blake's mind was a mystery to all of us, and those who had been closest to him were now either missing or dead. I'd tried to piece together answers, as I lay awake at night staring at the bottom of Daryl's bunk, listening to his breathing and playing out Andrea's death again and again in my mind.

During my first few days, even really the first few weeks, of my stay in Woodbury, I'd actually liked the Governor. He seemed convincing, maybe a little over-confident, but with a vivid magnetism that made every one of his ideas seem brilliant. I had quickly begun to chafe, however, but not necessarily because I suspected there was something sinister going on — I had simply developed somewhat of an aversion to any form of authority that was not my own or Rick's.

I struggled to figure out what exactly the warning signs had been. I couldn't add things up, couldn't reconcile the conflicting portions of his personality and rule — Michonne had shared with me the story of his daughter, who had died early on and who he had kept chained up as a walker. Michonne had put it out of its misery, and that was why he'd hated her so much, wanted her dead more than any of us.

She'd also told me about the walker heads, which he'd kept in fish tanks in a secret room of his apartment. The night she killed his daughter, the night she took his eye, Michonne had seen them, and then she'd understood we were not dealing with a cocky man, a chauvinist or a megalomaniac. We were dealing with a sociopath.

And that made tracking him so much harder. Daryl could read signs in the ground and I could circle all the likely roads out of town and Michonne could organize these expeditions, but we didn't know _who_ we were looking for. We were unable to predict where he would go, now that he had lost everything.

But what mattered most, I realized, as our cigarette died to nothing in the silence and we started getting ready for bed, was that we tried. That's all Andrea had wanted for herself, so that really was all we could demand of ourselves now. I agreed to Michonne's suggestion, and Daryl said that maybe we'd organize a quick run back to the strip mall for tomorrow, just the two of us and Zach. The kid was turning out to be quite an asset out in the field, and I think Daryl liked stepping into what had been Merle's shoes not too long ago, showing him how to do stuff and handle himself out there.

"Sounds good," I said, pulling on an extra pair of socks after I'd slipped out of my boots. The night were getting much colder, and even though we all piled on the blankets, everyone was waking up with chilled bones these days. "Well, goodnight then."

"'Night," Daryl grunted, heaving himself up to his bunk. Out in the cellblock around us, I could hear others preparing for bed, watching as camp lights switched off around us. Beth was humming somewhere below, probably in an attempt to soothe Judith to sleep. Down the hall, Tony and Jamie quickly began their nightly snoring concerto, and despite myself, I grinned into my pillow. The swelling populace of the West Georgia Correctional Facility may be overwhelming, but it was nice to have things like snoring and singing and shopping trips to count on.

As I reached down to switch off our own lamp, I glanced over at Beth's cat poster. _Just hang in there_.

Will do.

* * *

The next morning, I somehow managed to wake up before Daryl. It didn't happen very often, but as I blinked to awareness, I registered his boots still sitting on the far side of the cell and the sounds of his deep, sleepy breathing up above. That gave me an opportunity I didn't usually have until he'd left for a council meeting. Gently, as quietly as I could manage, I slid the shoebox out from underneath my bed.

Initially, I'd thought about labelling it — something like _Tampons_ or _Underwear_. Anything that directly pointed to the femininity that tended to make Daryl blush whenever it did come up. However, I'd soon reasoned, Daryl was a private enough person that he would respect my own privacy. He definitely wasn't the type of roommate to go snooping through my stuff, so I felt comfortable simply leaving it there. Even if he did open it and find my stash, what could he say?

The whisky was cool this morning, but slid down my throat with its usual bite. _Damn_. It pooled in my stomach with a rich finish, even as my mouth and esophagus burned in its wake. I took another three sips, then screwed the cap back on. Didn't need to be going crazy, not when we had a run today… _oh, shit_. I'd forgotten about the run.

A pair of socked feet appeared on the edge of the bunk above me, and Daryl slid down quietly, so as not to wake me. Hurriedly, I tucked the shoebox under my blanket, crossed my legs over top to disguise the lump. "Morning, D," I said with a smile.

He stood and stretched the sleep from his limbs, scratched idly at his messy hair. "Mornin'." I liked him in the early hours…he was softened at the edges, rumpled from sleep and a little off-guard, which was all so at odds with his usual tense, raring energy that it made for an interesting contrast. I, on the other hand, tended to look as though I'd just passed a night in the throttle of a tornado, and — judging from the grin playing about Daryl's mouth — this morning was no exception.

Distractedly, I ran my fingers through my messy hair. When had I last shampooed it, I wondered?

Daryl shoved his boots onto his feet and then selected a stylish little plaid number from the floor — with sleeves for a change, so as to be seasonally appropriate. I debated the logistics of squeezing in a shower before leaving, but decided against it, instead yawning as I debated between the green long-sleeved shirt or the black long-sleeved shirt I'd stacked in a basket near the headboard. Picking up the former and my second pair of jeans, I looked up to see Daryl still holding his shirt uncertainly.

Ah.

"I'm gonna grab a shower," I said quickly, snatching up my towel from the hook on the far wall. "Back in a few."

Under the jarringly cool cascade of water a few minutes later, I blushed with belated awkwardness. Because Daryl so frequently woke up before me, he'd always been able to dress while I was still sleeping; I had the privacy of our cell an hour or so later, when he was already eating or working. It was a scenario we'd never actually discussed. In fact, we'd never actually discussed sharing a cell; it had just happened. As our numbers got bigger, the impetus to clear some other cellblocks had also increased, but that couldn't happen overnight. That meant that, in the early days following Woodbury's fall, many of us had to share cells. Julia, from Woodbury, had needed a space for her and her two children, Luke and Molly, and I'd impulsively offered mine, before realizing that that would either necessitate me sharing with someone from Woodbury or squeezing in where I really couldn't fit with someone else — except for Daryl.

The offer had been sudden and jerky, involving him awkwardly pointing to his own cell and saying I could stay for the night…and that had been almost two months ago now. We made it work, despite the sniggers and insinuations from a few of the newcomers, and the strange looks we received when it was discovered that we did indeed sleep in separate bunks and rarely made eye contact. We'd shared the same tent once, back at the farm, and I relished the comfort of his close presence once more. I hoped he felt the same.

Scrubbing a sorry-looking bar of Irish Spring over my legs, I checked on the development of my newest addition — a rather vicious scar extending from my left ankle up to my kneecap. It was fairly thin, but the puckering from Hershel's stitches still hadn't gone down. During the tracking trip before this last one, I'd gotten entangled in a mess of barbed wire while fending off a walker. Got him, but also left a substantial amount of skin behind.

The old scar on my thigh, though, had healed well, and though the shadow of it was still there — dashing my future bikini model ambitions, sadly — no infection had set in and thankfully, there was no muscle or nerve damage to accompany it.

We were all inventories of scars these days. I'm sure they'd make great stories someday, when I felt ready to tell them.

After I'd washed my hair and rinsed the soap from my body, I stepped out of the privacy of the shower to a rather bustling space. Julia, Maggie, and a woman whose name I had yet to catch were all milling about, organizing their towels and today's outfits on the few benches contained within the shower area. Each cellblock had their own, but the council had decided that D-Block's would be reserved for women's use and C-Block for men's. Anybody who didn't care was free to use the showers in B-Block.

Shyly, I wound the towel around my body, offering some tentative "good mornings" as I passed by the other women. Naturally, even with all hell breaking loose and the dead beginning to walk, I was still body-conscious and eager to conceal stretch marks and errant hairs from others. Because that's what I should be worried about, right?

I dressed quietly, swearing under my breath as I realized I'd left my boots in the cell, meaning that I'd have to walk in sock feet all the way back upstairs. "Good morning," a calm voice curled into my ear.

She was new — slim and pretty, with spiky blonde hair and an electric smile, about my age or a few years older. She had come in from Woodbury, and I had a feeling she'd been doing mainly fence duty with Karen since her arrival. "Hi," I replied, hyper-aware of the fact that I had yet to put on my shirt, and so was about to introduce myself to this woman while wearing a faded camouflage-patterned sports bra.

Hey, you couldn't be picky in the apocalypse. It fit.

"Nice tat." She gestured to my left shoulder, where the liberty of eighteen years was celebrated bright and honest in the shape of a blue hibiscus.

I thanked her warmly, and experienced an unexpected rush of welcoming. "I'm Riley," I said, offering a hand.

She smiled wider. "Brandy."

"Like the song?"

Brandy threw her head back and laughed so loud that Maggie and Julia jumped; I'd never witnessed someone _actually_ throw their heads back to laugh. "Nobody has ever referenced that," she explained with delight. "Usually it's more along the lines of, 'Hey, baby, you want a drink of you?'"

"Jesus." I shook my head. "Seriously?"

"Oh, come on," she continued as she settled her towel down on the bench beside me and slipped out of her shoes, "you're gonna tell me you've never had a stupid-ass pick up line used on you?"

"Nah."

She shrugged, picking up a small bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo to take with her into the shower. "Not even your bowman? How did he get you?"

I froze.

Daryl wouldn't like this, not one bit. I mean, we were both used to people making their little jokes, but those were typically mild misunderstandings, or thinly veiled references to make-out sessions and shared flannel shirts. But most people were fully aware by now that we slept separately, rarely touched — in short, that there was nothing romantic between us. But the sound of "your bowman" made me blush, as did the image of Daryl offering a pickup line in a smoky bar; kisses in the dark; his fingers tracing my tattoo.

God, I needed a drink.

"Uh, well…he's not mine. We're not together." I shimmed the green shirt over my bra and gathered the rest of my shit up hurriedly. "Brandy, you're a fine girl, but I've got to be heading out. See you around."

Her laughter chased me up the stairs, and I could still hear her by the time I'd entered the cafeteria. Carol, in true Carol fashion, was already up, washed, dressed, and cooking up a huge serving of oatmeal for everyone. "Good morning," I said, peering into the pot without a huge amount of interest. "Any of those protein bars left?"

She grinned and pointed at the makeshift pantry to her left with a wooden spoon. "Ungrateful bitches shop over there." After offering her a middle-finger salute in response, I rummaged through a plastic tub of prepackaged snacks until I'd come up with a handful of bars, resolving to leave the peanut butter ones behind for Michonne.

"You headed out today?" she asked, doling out servings to Luke and Molly. "Daryl mentioned something last night."

I nodded, sneaking a handful of raisins from the bowl she had on offer on the edge of her serving table. "The strip mall, I think. Any requests?"

"Nothing except the List."

Ah, the List. My main job at the prison was to keep the List updated, largely by going around every couple of days to survey the group about things needed, wanted, or dreamed of. I started by just going around with a clipboard, jotting down the requests accompanied by names and symbols (star for urgent need; underline for less-urgent; circle for want) to help me compile a more organized List when it came time for runs. I'd prioritize them by number then, and would even try to organize them by stores and aisles, especially if I wasn't planning on heading out for the run. Through this, I had gotten to know many of the prison newcomers quite well, and often in ways I had no real desire to get to know people. Case in point:

 _"Condoms." Maggie's face was impassive, even as a grin twitched around my mouth. I nodded, jotted down the request, but left her name off. Like we'd need a reminder. Currently, she and her new husband were the only ones taking care of their business in the entire prison._

 _"Size?"_

 _"Damn it, Riley!" Her eyes flashed and glanced wildly around her cell, as though she expected her father to appear at any moment. "Just…get a variety. Other people will be wanting them. At some point."_

I chuckled now at the memory, and even more at what had followed that afternoon: Daryl and I had taken on a small run to a local drugstore, accompanied by Zach and another one of his group, Levi. The List that day had been fairly stereotypical — and when heading out for medical supplies, we usually just grabbed as much as we could carry. We'd taken out the silver truck that day, and were fully prepared to just keep loading it up until the store was close to empty (which it already basically was; it had been raided a long time ago).

I sent the two boys off in search of essential medical supplies. "Look for aspirin, antacids, rubbing alcohol, band-aids, that sort of thing," I instructed carefully, handing over two duffel bags. It had taken us just under ten minutes to clear the store of walkers, and I was already pleased with the efficiency they were demonstrating. "And remember to grab the kid versions too!"

Daryl and I were tackling the other aisles. "Toilet paper, D," I reminded him, "please don't forget the toilet paper." As he stalked off in search of his _extremely_ essential goal, I'd headed over to a more personal department, and started shoving a few boxes of condoms into my bag.

"Hey, they only got like four packs left, d'you think tissue — " Daryl stopped dead, watching me hoard prophylactics.

Now, I could've reacted in a myriad of ways: laugher and weeping, as previously mentioned; but I also could have maintained eye contact while continuing to select the condoms; I could've looked away; I could've made a joke; I could've run out the door and all the way back to the prison. Instead, as my mind explored my options, my body made an executive decision: I finished with the last few packages, flushed beet red, and said, "Maggie."

The rest of the shopping trip had been passed in stony silence.

Today, though, we were heading out to the local strip mall, which housed the Dollar$mart that Beth was so fond of, as well as a small used clothing store we'd only briefly cleared and run through a while back. Checking my clipboard where it hung on the back wall of the pantry, I could see that a few more requests and clothing sizes had been added, perhaps last night. I scanned through, and deemed it reasonable for the small group we were planning on taking out today. I assumed it would just be Daryl, Zach, and I, and possibly Levi. Nothing we couldn't handle.

I tossed one of the bars to Daryl, who was by now fully dressed in a pair of slightly less-ripped jeans, shrugging his arms into his leather jacket. We'd eat on the way. "Ready to go?" He nodded, picking up the crossbow and handing me my green canvas coat. I was just slipping on my boots when Zach appeared in the doorway.

"Levi can't come," he said apologetically. "He…uh…imbibed too much last night."

 _Hadn't we all?_

"'S'fine," Daryl said gruffly. "More room in the truck that way anyhow."

The drive to the strip mall was quiet; even Zach was uncharacteristically lost in thought. Perhaps things hadn't been progressing as well as he'd hoped with Beth, I pondered. Couldn't help him there. I scanned the List as we drove, checking off here and there the items that should be of most pressing concern. Heavier sweaters and long-sleeved shirts would be of top priority once we got in there; winter was coming on quick and even though Georgia wouldn't see too much snowfall, the nights were getting colder and colder. Keeping people healthy and warm was decidedly more important than the _band shirts_ request someone scrawled last night.

"That was Levi," Zach pointed out with a grin. "Disregard."

"Done." I finished off the protein bar and looked down the road ahead. "We'll divide and conquer," I explained. "We don't have to be too picky about sizes, except for specific requests. After we fulfill those, we can just start piling stuff in. We'll work on sorting it when we get back."

We'd been to the strip mall a couple of times already, mostly with larger run groups. Once upon a time, it had consisted of the clothing store we now headed for, as well as Lew's Granola Heap, a coffee shop, and the Dollar$mart. The latter was now nearly empty, and had provided us with most of our snack food items in the kitchen, as well as a few toys to keep the kids entertained and the books that we were slowly but steadily adding to the prison library and council meeting room downstairs. We'd cleared the clothing store on the first run and had secured the doors as best we could, but there was no telling if any walkers had managed to find their way in during the interim. I jumped out of the truck first, unsheathed my new Bowie from my thigh holster and slammed a fist against the front window to draw any potential shoppers to my presence.

"Anything?" Daryl grunted, tossing the duffel bags from the truck bed down to Zach. I shook my head.

"We should be good."

Inside, the space was dark and quiet. Our boots sounded impossibly loud on the tile floor, echoing off the nearly-empty racks and bins. "Zach, the baby bin's over there. Just grab as much as you can fit. Judith's growing fast." He nodded and headed over, and I looked down to consult the list. "Daryl, why don't you just clear the men's racks? They're on the far wall — " I jabbed my thumb to direct him — "and make sure you get plenty of jeans."

I headed to the women's section, simply sweeping great piles of clothes into the duffel bags and stuffing them as full as I could get them. Warmer clothes had initially been my priority, but I quickly realized (and shared) that it just made more sense to back the truck up to the front door and start tossing everything we could into the bed. T-shirts and tank-tops would be in demand come summer time; there was no point leaving them behind now.

We worked for a couple of hours straight, stopping only for water and smoke breaks. Zach found some garbage bags in the back room; I took them and stood in the truck bed, bagging up things randomly, to keep the wind from blowing the items from the back as we drove home. "Hey, Riley!" he crowed, rushing out with a smile. "Towels!" He held a huge stack of them aloft.

"Nice," I commended, grinning. The towels we did have at the prison were largely left behind by the prisoners, and were scratchy and thin as a result. The ones in Zach's arms looked soft and colourful; they would be a welcome surprise for many back at home.

Daryl stepped out into the sunlight, wiping sweat from his brow. "Empty," he said. "Should come back sometime for the bins."

He was right; they would come in handy. It surprised me that he thought of this, since his idea of wardrobe organization was to dump his clothes in three piles on one side of our cell.

Looking around at the eighteen garbage bags, seven totes, and massive pile of loose items that wouldn't fit into any of the aforementioned receptacles, I became a little overwhelmed. It was sure to be a massive inventory project, and ensuring that everything was distributed fairly would be a challenge. Briefly, I thought about the logistics of creating a communal closet spread across a cell or two, where people could select clothes every couple of days and then submit them to the laundry?

I had just opened my mouth to ask Zach and Daryl's opinion on this idea when I saw her. Blue dress, broken face…she reminded me so much of my first that the sight of her stole the breath from my lungs. She stumbled towards us with filmy eyes and grasping hands, setting all three of us on edge, even though she was still a good forty or so feet away. One wasn't a problem, never was, so Daryl and I exchanged a look and let Zach lurch forward and take her out.

The kid drove his machete deep into the walker's skull, but visibly struggled to release it. This was a common problem, especially for first-timers. There was a natural expectation that disengaging the machete or knife would be just as simple as pulling it back out towards you — like after cutting bread or cheese. But the reality was that you needed to carefully slide it out through the same track by which it had gone in, especially when looking at skull hits. Otherwise, it would be difficult to dislodge from the bone. Daryl made a move to help him, but I shook my head. "Just start the truck. I'm getting hungry."

The walker was already dead, so Zach and I had time for a little lesson. I explained the principle of gliding it back out, noting that his movement should start in a flexible wrist. "Don't ever lock it," I advised. "Keep it as fluid and free as you can. The grip comes from the fingers; movement stays in your wrist."

With a squelch that I had still never managed to get used to, the machete broke free of the dead flesh. "Thanks," he said with a grin.

He was learning quick, faster than any of the rest of his group. Even Levi wasn't nearly as open to new skills or constructive criticism. The problem with that group was largely ego — they'd convinced themselves that because they'd managed to last as long as they had, that they had nothing else to figure out or be taught. Dangerous thinking.

"What did you do before all this?" he asked quietly, wiping off the blade on the walker's dress.

"College," I replied, turning to head back to the truck. "Atlanta U. Journalism. You?"

"Senior year of high school in Macon. I was looking at Atlanta, actually," he said with a shrug. "What about Daryl?"

I smiled. "Your guess is as good as mine."

He stopped, and I looked back to see him staring at me with a puzzled expression. "You guys seem so tight, tho — "

"Zach!" They seemed to come out of nowhere, so shockingly silent in their approach that the hum of their excitement now seemed deafening in contrast. I yanked him away from their reaching hands, perhaps a little too forcefully, because he tripped over his own feet and swore as he landed on his wrist. _Shit_.

My Bowie was already secured in my holster, and my brain seemed to think it was more important that I count the four walkers closing in on us than actually reach for my weapon. I kicked out toward the closest one, catching him right behind the knee and watching him fall to the ground. This gave me the chance to unsheathe my knife and aim for the next two. I jammed the blade beneath the chin of a female, aiming my foot out towards a shorter male, who then received a knife to the temple.

"Down!"

I hit my knees as the bolt came whistling through the air, lodging deep in the face of the fourth. Chest heaving, I too late realized I'd left my knife in the skull of my last kill, which would have come in handy to take care of the first one, which I'd forgotten within the last twenty-three seconds. His scabby hand wrapped around my arm, squeezing it like a vice. I scrabbled along the asphalt, completely aware of how much I'd overreacted to this small knot of walkers. But I was also keenly aware of the tightening grip, the blood rushing through my veins, and the panic bursting in my chest as hot and furious as a wildfire. I raked my nails along the pavement, a silent scream ripping my mouth at the corners, as the creature brought its teeth ever closer to my flesh; I dragged my face away, willing the rest of my body to come with it.

"You okay? Shit, girl, talk to me!"

I opened my eyes to a world made new, to locks of dark, sweaty hair tripping over my face. "Oh, fuck." I struggled to sit up; Daryl loosened his grip on my arms, helped me to lean back against his chest.

"Take deep breaths," Zach instructed, and I realized he was cradling his wrist gingerly. Guilt-sodden apologies fell from my mouth, but he just smiled. "Don't worry about it — you saved my ass, and now Beth'll have to take care of me."

My face felt fiery and sore, and my wrist was already blooming with the dead man's last grip. Standing woozily, I ran tender fingers down my arms, sides, legs, and stomach. Nothing; no bites. "What the hell happened there?" Daryl asked lowly, doing his own bite check with firmer hands.

"L-lost my shit," I stammered, my mind racing to catch up with what had just occurred. I looked down; the walker that had had me in its grasp only moments before now had Daryl's knife sticking out of its temple, flat on its back; vacant eyes stared straight up at me, and I shivered. What had happened? How could I have forgotten to kill the first one? How could I have left my knife?

Months living in these conditions had sharpened so many of my reflexes and instincts that a small group like this, already a little slower moving from the cold snap, should've been easy. I had pushed Zach away far too roughly: he never should've been made to lose his balance — that could've easily become a disaster. Daryl gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look straight in his eyes. "Riley, you good?"

His blue gaze was honest, piercing, and deeply, deeply concerned. I could only blink dumbly in the face of it, nod slowly.

Daryl drove back, while I sat in a dull, guilty silence. I'd only had three sips of whisky this morning — could they actually have clouded my judgement to this degree? Or had the beer and wine the night before done that? Or — and this made me cringe — had the fifth beer I'd downed in the middle of night after a washroom trip changed things?

No, I reassured myself as we pulled up the prison road. No. It couldn't have been. I wasn't drunk, nowhere close. And if I was, I would've excused myself from the run. I could never be so irresponsible, so selfish. It was just a fluke. Just a stupid, stupid fluke.

* * *

"How does that feel?"

I pressed tentative fingers against the gauze that Hershel had just finished winding around my face. It was a mild case of road rash, and he'd treated it with some antibiotic cream before wrapping it up. I'd caught a glimpse in the truck's mirror — angry red patches had been splashed across most of the left side of my face, thankfully skirting around my eye. When the walker had tried to pull me back towards its mouth, I had scraped my own face raw trying to get away.

"Better, thanks." I shifted my legs in the bed, trying to get more comfortable. Though it was just past five o'clock, I was aiming for a nap. My whole body ached with the stress of the afternoon. Hershel started rearranging my blanket, helping me to slide my sore feet under the duvet with a paternal tenderness that always brought tears to my eyes.

"What's this?"

In the struggle with the blanket, the lid had come off the shoebox I had neglected to put back beneath my bed this morning. The clink of the half empty bottle made me flush a deeper hue than the road rash, though Hershel couldn't see it to compare. Kind eyes slid up to meet panicked ones, and I tried to smile. "A treat for Daryl and I now and then," I said smoothly. "I was cleaning out under the bunk this morning and forgot to put it back." _Always nestle a lie in a truth._

"Why is it in a box, Riley?" Hershel's voice was even, deep and knowing. Had he even blinked since he'd picked it up?

I shrugged off-handedly. "Oh, I don't know. We've been a little selfish with it, I guess. It's pretty good. Burns like hell, though."

Though he cared, Hershel wasn't my father, and there was relatively little he could do here. He could take his concerns to Rick, but these days our fearless leader was distracted. He wasn't even really leading anymore — he'd deferred to the prison council, preferring to spend his days preparing for a spring garden, caring for the pigs and chickens we'd accumulated from Woodbury and a few nearby farms. He would care, too, but couldn't do anything. I was an adult, capable of making my own decisions. Hell, if laws still existed I was more than old enough to legally drink.

I just hoped he wouldn't mention anything to Daryl.

Hershel studied my face, chewed on the inside of his lip. "Alright then. I don't think there's any signs of a concussion, even though Daryl says you passed out back there. I'm not too concerned about that." He heaved himself from my bed, picking up his crutches from where they rested at the foot. "Just take it easy, sweetheart."

I pulled the purple duvet up tight to my chin and closed my eyes, hoping that despite the dull roar of my fiery face and the staccato notes of guilt playing about in my mind, I could manage to scrape up some rest. Besides the incident, it had been a productive damn day, and I wished things could've gone more simply at the end, so that I could lay here and focus on our success rather than run through every detail I could recall, hoping to find my innocence in some element.

The whisky wasn't enough to make me drunk, it couldn't have been. And even with a hangover, I still wouldn't have gotten that far throughout the day, not really. I'd woken with a headache and a dry mouth, but no nausea, no fatigue, nothing that made me think it would be better to postpone the run and just stay in bed. I'd even been able to keep one and a half protein bars down.

Rolling over to face the concrete wall, I decided that it had just been an unfortunate incident — I had panicked, because Zach was in danger. The fact that road rash and a sprained wrist were all we had to show for it, that sounded like a good day.


	23. Little Reckless

_**Chapter XXIII: Little Reckless**_

I ran one hand through her dark mane, the other down her buckskin flank. She gave a low whicker of appreciation. "Did you miss me, darling?" I asked softly, "'cause I missed you."

Rick had built the paddock with the intention of finding some cows or goats at some point, but when Michonne, Daryl, and I had encountered Flame and Honey in a field near Senoia, that changed things. With gentle hands and a quiet skill, Daryl had managed to loop two ropes around the necks of the pretty mares, and slowly, we'd led them home on foot. It took us nearly a day and a half, but it was worth it.

The horses enabled us to move quickly and deftly through the forest, keeping us high and away from walkers. They didn't require gas, unlike the cars or the motorcycle, and riding them kept us fit and ready to fight. I still wasn't the most confident rider, but Michonne took to it and Flame like a natural, so I would simply clamber up into the saddle with either her or Daryl, depending on the day and the latter's mood. But officially, Honey was mine. I'd even named her, after her golden coat.

"Gorgeous." Brandy had walked down to the horses' shed with me this morning, under strict instructions from Hershel and Dr. Subramanian to make sure I didn't push myself beyond my limits, because I "didn't seem to understand them," according to the good doctors' professional opinions.

I smiled now at my new friend, stepping aside gently so that she could rub Honey's nose. "Yeah, she is."

A friendship had sprung up between Brandy and I over the past couple of weeks, one that surprised me and delighted me in equal measure. She'd repeatedly sought me out as the fall faded into winter, even helping with the List on a regular basis and switching from fence crew to the logistics team that the council had recently put me in charge of. Basically, our task was to organize supplies and keep them up to date. Now that I had some helpers, my days were going a lot smoother, despite the fact that our numbers kept going up.

Daryl seemed to bring people back every time he went on a run. Just last week, he'd brought in an entire family — a man named Ryan and his two daughters, Mika and Lizzie. The girls were settling in well, according to Tim, a former teacher from Woodbury who had set up something of a school for the prison's children down in the library. Ryan was still recovering from a broken arm, but once he was feeling better, he was going to be the newest member of my team, and he seemed genial enough.

"When do you guys leave again?" Brandy asked as we started to head back up, leaving Rick and Carl to rub Honey down and give her something to eat. I had a meeting this afternoon with Carol to discuss our food storage situation, and wanted to squeeze in some lunch with Brandy before then.

I shrugged. "Two or three days, I think. Daryl's watching the weather."

It would be our fourth expedition since the fall of Woodbury, since Andrea's death. The trail was growing colder every time we headed out, and Daryl's expression was getting a little darker every time we returned. Michonne and I were still enthusiastic in our pursuit, still keeping track on the map she'd pinned up her in cell, but even I had a niggling awareness fiddling around in the back of my mind that it had been too long. Too long without any firm sightings or real clues. We'd checked farmhouses and grocery stores and we'd combed the sides of the highways for any indication, however small, that the Governor had gone through the area. We debated the likelihood of him heading for Atlanta or out of state. We followed rivers and looked for shelters; we studied the ground and branches on the trees, and at night I gave in to whisky-soaked dreams of him dead at my feet.

"Yeah, he's watching the weather, and you're watching him," Brandy laughed, shoving my shoulder slightly. I smiled but offered no other reply, instead just holding open the door to the cafeteria for her.

Lunch was macaroni and cheese, but not the brand-name stuff. Lizzie, the oldest of the new sisters, handed Brandy and I our servings while Mika was distributing spoons. "Thanks, ladies," I said kindly. If there was one thing I did enjoy about the increasing prison group, it was the kids. They brightened up the place considerably — you couldn't help but be hopeful when you looked at them, heard them laughing, listened as they sorted out the new world in their own ways.

"Like, would you even ask somebody out on a date here?" Brandy continued, loading up her fork with pasta. "How does that work?"

I gave her question some genuine thought, my eyes straying over to Beth and Zach, who were sitting together in a quiet corner, splitting a bowl of lunch between them. Beth giggled at something Zach had said, her blue eyes sparkling and ponytail bobbing. "I don't know…" I said slowly. "Maybe like, 'Hey baby, we're getting _real low_ on toilet paper, want to go on a run?'"

"Yes!" she crowed. "Totally stealing that."

Life was moving towards something close to normal these days, and even though that brought some comfort, the changes and disruptions that came along with that normalcy were slowly but surely beginning to get under my skin. People were indulging in petty squabbles, fighting about cells and clothes and meal times. Every week, Daryl and I had more and more people applying to go on runs, and each time, we got a little more disappointed. Plenty of people who'd assured us they'd done the same in old groups or previous camps became a burden to us out there, so much so that we had begun to prefer just taking Zach and Levi out with us, and occasionally Brandy.

Daryl was visibly uncomfortable when I brought Brandy along. Admittedly, she was loud and jokey, but Zach and Levi were both in love with her, and she lightened the tension so much that I was half in love with her too on these occasions. "Why don't you like her?" I asked him once, after a mug of wine and a cigarette. "You get all clammed up when she's around."

Surprise, surprise, I'd received no answer.

Now, though, I chewed thoughtfully, scraping the last cheesy bits from the bottom of the bowl. "Who do you have your eye on?"

Brandy just shrugged. "Many, many viable options here." She swept a sarcastic hand around the cafeteria which, at the moment, featured only Luke, Molly, Beth, Zach, and the ever-cheerful Mr Jacobsen, a man from Woodbury in his seventies. I practically snorted into my empty bowl. "See my problem?"

As we usually did this time of day, the two of us set our bowls in the large washbasin at the back of the cafeteria and headed to my cell. I still had another hour until my meeting with Carol, and I'd already done my logistics duties for the day. Later, after Carol, I would do my weekly inspection of the clothing cells, down in A-Block, making sure things were running smoothly and no one was absurdly hoarding clothing items. I'd decided to allow people to keep a small supply in their cells at a time, but the bulk of what we possessed was stored down there and organized by size.

I'd dealt with a couple of arguments down there already. Anticipating the headache, I preferred to have a little down-time in my cell or Brandy's before facing it.

"When was the last time you got any?" Brandy asked, flopping down on my bed.

 _Seriously?_

Getting laid was Brandy's newest goal in the prison. She'd spent the last little while getting settled and adjusted, and now she was looking for a boyfriend. There were a couple of men near our age, but they'd come in with Zach's group and were actually kind of annoying. Zach and Levi were the only ones I could personally tolerate — the rest treated me with a sense of disdain, even resentment, particularly when they realized that Daryl and I were _both_ in charge of runs, and that I felt more than comfortable offering constructive criticism, even — shocking as it may be — to men older and less capable than myself.

For my own part, I wasn't much interested. Finding the Governor was still weighing heavily on my mind, and between that, my work, and the newest bottle of whisky beneath my bed, I had too much to do to worry about a boyfriend. For Beth it was fine — she needed that positivity in her life, and I was happy for her and for Zach; and for Maggie and Glenn, and their marriage, of course, I was thrilled. But it wasn't high on my list, that was for damn sure.

"Come on…" Brandy entreated. "Details. I'm dying over here."

Chloe was fairly well known to many of my group members, but RJ was a secret. I didn't share my past very often or in great detail; it hurt too much. I still felt guilty about the way I had left the college, especially that I hadn't worked harder to bring him with us. He was likely long dead, and that was my fault.

But Brandy possessed this uncanny ability to make you feel so comfortable, so safe in her presence that you could share just about anything. And I wanted someone to know him, someone to remember him with me. So I started talking about him, tears crowding my throat as I related our first date, his inspiration for becoming a marine biologist. I told her about the way it felt when he kissed me, like I was the most important person in the whole world; how it felt to fall asleep with my head on his chest; to walk to class with his hand in mine and the sweet surety of belonging to someone, belonging to a relationship that was just about us.

I talked for ages, Brandy nodding along and laughing in all the right places, squeezing my hand when the tears spilled over. I talked him back to life, so much so that I expected to see him standing in the doorway, leaning back against the wall. "Sweetheart," he'd called me once. Just like the old song.

Sniffling, I tried to rub the moisture out of my eyes, suddenly self-conscious at this show of vulnerability. I didn't have time to cry, not anymore. Brandy reached over to pull me into a hug, tight and breathless. "Sorry, kiddo," she said softly. "But I was looking for more like, sexy details."

I laughed tearfully, a smile breaking out across my face. It was so like something Chloe would've said — something she did often say, after I returned from a night in RJ's dorm. "Oh, the sex was good," I replied blithely, "the sex was real good."

"Carol's looking for you."

Stomach sinking, I turned to see Daryl standing in the doorway of the cell, eyes cast down to his boots, pointedly not looking at either of us. "Thanks," I choked, face flaming. I pushed gently past him, not even trying to read his expression just yet. I couldn't bear the mortification.

I was distracted during my entire meeting with Carol, but we managed to assemble a new priority list for a supply run next week. Her goal was to increase our canned fruit collection, as she'd already had to instate rationing on the peaches and pears we did have. "This time next year, we'll have our own preserved supply," she said with a sigh, tossing away her pen.

"Hmm," I agreed, checking off a few more to-dos. "So just fruit? We running low on anything else?"

"More rice wouldn't go amiss."

I starred that with my red pen. "Got it."

The rest of the afternoon flew by, as I lost myself in the flurry of activity necessitated by my inspection of the "closet cells," as Julia and her kids had begun to call them. I was pleased to see that the system of organization I'd implemented a few weeks ago was still operating effectively, and that communication hadn't yet broken down between Julia, who was my right-hand there in the closet; and Mr Jacobsen, who supervised the laundry.

"Thanks for keeping the summer stuff hidden," I said to her conspiratorially before heading out. "We'll be in them soon enough." By the time I'd finished my tasks for the day, updated Hershel on my progress, and stopped in the cafeteria to grab a bowl of rice and venison, I'd nearly forgotten about my earlier awkward interaction with Daryl.

Nearly.

"Hey," I said quietly, tentatively stepping into the cell. I wasn't yet sure what kind of reception I would be enjoying this evening. Maybe he wouldn't even care that he'd overheard me talking about my sex life; maybe he'd stood there listening to the whole thing. Maybe I was crazy and there was nothing between us that warranted this hesitancy, this uncertainty. He was sitting on the floor, his usual pose at this time of day, a cigarette smouldering between his lips as he sharpened a knife. His body language was tense and tight, but really, that told me nothing. Daryl was always tense.

So far, so good. I busied myself with removing my boots, adding an extra pair of socks to keep out the chill. "How was your day?" I asked, settling back on the bottom bunk and hoping he was about to offer me the smoke. If he did that, everything was copacetic. If he did that, we were back to normal. Nothing weird happening in this particular cell.

He just shrugged, stubbing the cigarette out on the floor — an act which I'd already told him clearly pissed the ever-living hell out of me. It was that small decision right there that baited something combative deep within me, and I couldn't help myself: "You mad at me or something?"

I expected his eyes to flash, the way they did in the moments before he burst out with anger — but he didn't even look at me, just scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped.

I wanted to fight. Crying over RJ in this room had left me feeling cracked wide open and I was aching with the effort of it all. I was pissed off that he was pissed, but wouldn't tell me why; or maybe I was upset that he wasn't more visibly upset. I don't know. I did know that I needed a drink, that's for sure.

"You think I give a shit about your dead boyfriend?"

I gaped at him, heartbroken and angry all at once. I wanted to hit him and curl up here in this bed and drink my life away, whisky burning my throat until there was nothing left, a trail of road rash on the inside this time. _Your dead boyfriend_. I'd known RJ was likely dead for a long time. To me, really, he was dead the moment I walked out of that parking lot, such a long time ago. But what gave Daryl the right to talk about him like that? What gave him the right to kill him for good, to bury him right there on the highway with Chloe?

I ducked down my head so he wouldn't see the tears in my eyes — I'd decided a while back that I wasn't going to cry in front of him anymore. "No," I said lowly, "but I thought you gave a shit about me."

He scoffed again, scrambling to his feet. "You know," I snarled, squaring up to his chest, looking him dead in the eye. "I was coming in here to apologize, in case I made you uncomfortable this afternoon, talking about that." Not technically true, but it seemed like a good idea now and the thing about a guilt trip is that it's about making the other person guilty — facts are largely irrelevant.

"Why the fuck would it?" His voice was surprisingly quiet, controlled, even though his right hand was beginning to tremble with suppressed frustration. He squared his shoulders, took a step closer, daring me to answer.

I swept my hands around sarcastically, rolling my eyes. "Oh, right — because I'm 'nothing' to you, that's right…you just want to share a cell and 95% of your time with me because I'm nothing to you and you don't give a flying shit about anything that concerns me!"

Invoking those days when we'd both been scraped raw by loss, that was wrong, and I felt it the moment the words blazed from my lips. I might as well have slapped him across the face and kicked him in the balls, for all the hurt I gave him in that moment. His face collapsed, sinking back into those moments when I'd held him in the grass, and then just twenty-four hours later, when I'd lost Andrea and run straight into his embrace. Those moments had been our most vulnerable, and we'd shared them with each other.

But I wasn't done, apparently. "You're rude to Brandy, too, you know. You never talk to her when we're on runs, and today, you just turned on your heel and — "

"Because you're off your fucking guard when she's around!"

I grabbed two fistfuls of my own hair, swearing incoherently. "Because she makes me laugh? Because when I'm with her I can talk about something other than the correct fucking way to kill a corpse? These are good things, asshole!"

Daryl rounded on me, jabbing a hand far too close to my face to drive home his response: "You think sitting around talking about dead boyfriends is a good thing? Waste of fucking time!"

"Don't talk about him!" I sobbed, surprising myself. When had I started crying?

"Oh, Jesus." Daryl pushed back from my flailing hand, though whether I was reaching for comfort or to smack him across the face, neither of us could tell. He grabbed my right wrist, pushed me back from him to pick up his crossbow. "Crazy bitch."

He stormed out onto the catwalk, and like a glutton for punishment, I followed him, raring for another round, but immediately deflated when I saw Glenn, Maggie, and Brandy standing awkwardly there, near the stairs, eyes flitting back and forth between Daryl stomping down to the main level and me standing in the doorway of our cell with shaking hands and tears streaming down my cheeks. Pitying expressions clearly said they'd heard everything.

There was nothing left to say now, so that night, I drank the whole bottle.

* * *

 _Damn it_.

For the first time in weeks, I knocked into the upper bunk as I woke up the next morning. The impact sent a riotous pain straight through my head, and consciousness felt like sandpaper on my tongue. What had woken me?

"Wow, you look like shit."

Michonne's voice was ironic, husky, and critical — if it hadn't been, though, I might not have known it was her standing there; the sunlight was so painfully bright in the cell that it nearly blinded me. "Thanks; you're too sweet." Gingerly, I swung my legs over the side of my bunk. "I knew there was a reason we kept you around."

Every nerve in my body felt like it was rebelling, an angry insurrection against peace of mind. Rubbing idly at my temples, I blinked into focus, taking in the scene. Our cell was never exactly neat as a pin, but we'd done a fairly good job of keeping our space somewhat organized thus far — however, at some point last night, I'd ripped down the kitten poster, strewn Daryl's blankets and pillow on the floor, and kicked at his clothing piles until they shattered and spread all over the place. There were several empty cans of beer distributed haphazardly about, and in pride of place, right next to my bedside, stood the empty bottle of Jack.

Michonne surveyed the damage with me, clucking her tongue exasperatedly. "Rough night?"

"Don't even ask."

So she didn't. I quickly realized this was because she already knew most of what had taken place between Daryl and I the night before — in fact, almost everyone in the prison did. Not surprising, really, given that we were crowded into small cells with impressive echoing capabilities, and we didn't really get much occasion for gossip. Two people having a shouting match in their room, followed by one storming out and the other getting completely wasted and trashing their shit — yeah, that made for a good story.

I ate breakfast in the cell that morning, the weight of too many eyes and the deafening sound of so many whispers and critical looks brought me more shame than the things I'd said and done the night before. I marvelled at how quickly that awkward conversation and half-assed apology had dissolved into cruelty. We'd both been horrible to each other, and I'd actually wanted to hit him. To hit a man who still bore the scars of a legacy of abuse — what was wrong with me?

No one besides Michonne talked to me all morning, and that was just fine with me. Penitently, I tidied up the cell — taping the cat poster back onto the wall, taking the empty bottles and cans down to the kitchen and rinsing them out. The bottles could be sterilized and reused as receptacles for something, and the cans would make good deterrents out in the fields come spring, keeping crows away from our plants.

I even made Daryl's bed, taking his blankets and sheets down to the laundry room and exchanging them for a fresh set of each. Down in one of the storage rooms in A-Block, I found a couple of cardboard boxes that I used to neatly fold and organize his clothing. To cap it all off, I found a blue plaid shower curtain down there that I decided to hang from the doorway. It wasn't the classiest detail ever, but I used some fairly heavy duty duct tape to attach the curtain to the top of the frame. Giving it a tug to ensure it was secure, I stood back to admire my handiwork.

These cells would never look like homes, I'd realized a long time ago. We could decorate as much as we wanted; they would always be narrow, concrete, and grim. Those beds would always be iron, and there would always be a goddamn toilet sticking straight out of the wall.

It was the people within it, that's what made these places tolerable. Julia, downstairs, being able to put her children to bed in a safe space, where she could see them and listen to their breathing and be woken up by them jumping on her mattress — that's what made it home. Glenn and Maggie, making the rest of us uncomfortable with sighs and kisses throughout the night; Beth singing, papering her walls with inspirational posters and scavenged magazines, the faces of celebrities long dead; Daryl and I, sharing a drink and a cigarette, carefully avoiding the mountains of pain and tenderness between us, trying to figure out what this was — that was home.

And I'd fucked it all up.

"Riley."

Rick held my new curtain back with one hand, eyes questioning and uncertain. He was waiting for permission. I nodded, sitting back down on my neatly made bunk, leaving some space beside me. I had the distinct feeling that I was about to receive a talking-to.

"Where is he?" I asked quietly. As far as I could tell, Daryl had been MIA since last night. He hadn't come back for his cigarettes or any of his clothes, and I hadn't encountered him during my extensive travels through the prison today. Shame washed over me in a tidal wave once again, reminding me that I'd probably driven him away with my theatrics.

Rick didn't answer me right away, just sat there staring at the wall, hands steepled between his knees and pointing toward the floor. "Do you know," he said heavily, sighing, "why I recommended Daryl for the council but not you?"

Actually, I'd never wondered about it. The council had been born in the early days after Woodbury, when Rick had decided to step down from leadership following the incident with Carl and the blue-eyed boy in the woods. Parenting and farming were his main focuses now, but in order for the new community to run smoothly and fairly, we had to have some form of leadership. Hershel had been appointed leader — he was a natural first choice, and his ability to easily empathize with the variety of newcomers meant that he could more suitably represent the prison group as a whole.

Carol wasn't a surprise either. Rick had insisted that she be part of the council, especially in light of the role she played in keeping the community fed and cared for. Over the past year and a half, Carol had grown from a frightened, browbeaten wife to a steely, determined survivor. This development meant she understood and supported our needs for security, for cautious decision-making, and for democratic discussion.

Sasha Williams, Tyreese's younger sister, was recommended by the Woodbury people to represent the formerly independent group. She was a key element to their integration into the prison, and her extensive experience with runs and defence, as well as her former career as a firefighter, enabled Sasha to keenly understand security needs, interdependence measures, and the logistics of supporting a growing community.

When Daryl's appointment had been announced, however, many were taken aback. As much as I cared about him, even I had to admit that, based on first glances and interactions, he was intimidating. Many of the Woodbury people had outright expressed displeasure at Rick's choice, but he had calmly and simply defended it by saying that Daryl Dixon knew our priorities and needs and would be an integral part of any official decision-making process.

I had never been approached to join the council, but it had never bothered me in any way; I had never even briefly questioned it. My job in logistics kept me plenty busy as it was, and the seemingly endless council meetings likely would've driven me crazy. Daryl never vocally complained about them, but I could tell by the way he sometimes slammed things around when heading for yet another session that was getting a bit fed up. Nevertheless, that council was our governing body here, and it was an important job.

"I wanted him there because he's a hell of a lot smarter than he gives himself credit for," Rick continued, despite my contemplative silence. "He's changed so much since the start, and I guess I wanted to acknowledge that. He's more rational, calmer. _That's_ why I chose him."

I nodded. "Good." What else could I say?

"You were recommended, too," he said quietly. I stole a glance at his tense expression, at his hands shifting distractedly in his lap. This was a conversation he didn't want to have, but a small, secret part of me relished the chance that I might be hurt by what he was about to say next. I deserved it, after all.

"Sasha and Tyreese wanted you, and a couple of people from Woodbury. They figured that 'cause you were in charge of supply here, you should be on the council. But the others, we had to shut it down."

Carol had raised the first alarm, Rick explained gently, as I listened in a dull silence. She had been concerned that after my ordeal during the winter and at Woodbury, I wouldn't be up yet mentally to any major debates or arguments. She'd done it out of genuine care, Rick emphasized, not spite. Daryl and Hershel had concurred, with the former pointing out that the loss of Andrea had severely coloured my rationale in several situations up to that point, that I had developed a new impulsive streak that worried both of them.

"He said he'd keep you close, try to work on it, but that in his opinion, you shouldn't be put in a position like that, that it wasn't fair to you."

It made sense, I suppose. The days after Andrea's death had been dark for everyone, even as we worked together to establish our new community. I had spent the first three days in bed, curled up in a cocoon I made on the bottom bunk of our cell, unable and unwilling to face my own guilt. I wholeheartedly blamed myself for Andrea ending up there in that room, bitten and bleeding and dying alone.

Daryl had brought me food, I remembered now, laying dishes of dry cereal and noodles doused in ketchup — in those early days, the only real meals we could enjoy — down beside the bed, gruffly entreating me to eat something, anything. He'd even lit up cigarettes right next to me, perhaps hoping that my nicotine craving would do what even my hunger could not manage. When, after those three, miserable days, I had slid out of bed and headed down to the newly working showers, Daryl had been visibly relieved.

We hadn't spoken about Merle's death, or Andrea's, since then. Not until last night, when I'd thrown his angry, grief-stricken words back into his face and thus raised from the dead those hours and embraces that held within them too much pain.

"I'm too crazy, then," I said bitterly. Wasn't that what he'd called me? A crazy bitch?

Rick took me by the shoulders, forcing me to turn and look directly at him. "No, you're not." His green eyes were feverish, his tone so urgent it actually sent a flicker of panic down my spine. "That's not what everyone's saying, not at all. You're headstrong, maybe a little reckless sometimes, Riley, and they're worried that you can't let the Governor go."

During many of our runs and search expeditions, Daryl had seemed to be spending a little more of his time focusing on instruction and reminders, all directly aimed at me. At the time, I'd always thought it was just an instinct to share important knowledge, to keep me safe and give me new skills. Turns out, the real reason was that they were all sitting there worried I was about to lose my shit well and good. Colour rose to my face at the thought of these conversations — here I was, walking around thinking I was a complete badass, and the whole prison council had to shoot down a motion to put me in any realm of influence beyond counting socks and bags of rice. I was a joke. An utter farce. Had they all been laughing at me, behind my back?

I pushed away from Rick's grip, standing before I could cry. No crying today. "Okay, fine, whatever," I said, reaching down to tug my boots on. "I'm going to look for Michonne. We've got to prep." I was almost halfway down the catwalk when I heard his voice, hoarse and gentle:

"He went hunting."

* * *

Georgia winters were nothing to me. I'd grown up in the northeast, with snowdrifts creeping up the telephone poles and cancelling school. So the nip in the air as Michonne and I set out on our eighth search trip didn't bother me at all. The fact that Daryl wasn't with us and hadn't yet returned from his hunting trip, as far as I could tell, _that_ was beginning to bother me.

"How did he put it?"

Ahead on the trail, Michonne stiffened. This morning, offhandedly, she'd mentioned that Daryl had already passed on the trip, the day after our fight, the day he left. Since then, I'd been mulling over the potential details, details she hadn't yet shared, wondering what kind of information they would provide.

"Just said he wasn't coming. Said the trail went cold weeks ago. Said for us to be careful." Her response was flat, tired, as though I'd been asking her this question over and over again, even though I hadn't. It frustrated me that she wasn't more upset about this, and that he could simply end this, a day before — shoot down everything we'd been working towards just because of that argument.

What frustrated me most, however, was my own response to the entire situation. At first, I honestly hadn't meant to pick that fight with Daryl, but once it had started brewing, I didn't take a single opportunity to walk away or make things right, and I should have. Part of me had desired that fight, wanted to bait him and watch him rise to anger. But why? Because I was missing RJ, because I wanted him to like Brandy as much as I did? Because he hadn't been vocally upset about me sleeping with someone else?

I didn't want to be that kind of a person, I thought, as we picked our way carefully through the forest trail. Life was too short for that kind of passive-aggressive shit before the end of the world, and it was certainly too short now. I owed Daryl an apology — two now, really — but what did it matter how he felt about RJ? What did it matter if he was bothered or indifferent to my personal life before the prison, before him?

Any minute out here could be my last. A threat could emerge faster than I could respond, and I could die because of that. If you didn't understand that simple fact, in this world, you were probably already dead anyway. And I didn't want to fill those last moments, if that's what they were going to become, to feature me embroiled in this kind of inner monologue. Choices, right? We all make choices, and that keeps you moving forward. With the world the way it was, that was the only direction you wanted to be moving in.

I resolved to apologize to Daryl when we got back, and then move out of the cell. There were some going spare in A-Block now that it had been cleared; we were crowding each other out in there. If I moved down there, Brandy and I could hang out whenever we wanted; I could drink as late as I wanted; and hopefully, tensions would ease between Daryl and I. Perhaps others would see that I could be balanced and independent, too.

A golden wave of good intentions washed over me as we investigated a farmhouse in the fading afternoon light. I would be better. I would do better.

We let the horses come right into the living room; the house had already been ransacked, rummaged through extensively. It was far too risky to leave Honey and Flame out there in the field; the dead could be anywhere. After a quick clearing session, where we had to take out just two walkers holed up in the basement who couldn't really bother us, but who were making enough noise to,well, wake the dead — we settled in for the night. I'd packed two feed bags for our girls; Michonne had brought along a couple of cans of soup for us. We ate in silence, much like we'd passed the entire day.

Daryl was right; the trail had gone cold, ice cold. We'd seen no signs in weeks, no indications that anyone had passed through recently, let alone the Governor and his remaining men. He was smart enough to avoid travelling on the highway, I was sure, but even that didn't hold any signs. Our options in the surrounding area — the trips that only took us three or four days out — were slimming down quickly. If we were going to keep going out, we would have to start leaving for a week or two at a time.

I brought this up as we ate, and Michonne nodded slowly in agreement. "You up for that?" she asked.

Oh, because I was too crazy? Too headstrong? Too immature to handle anything beyond counting clothes or small-time runs where the others deigned to allow me to posture and pose like I was a badass? "Why the fuck does everyone think I'm not up to this?" I flared.

"Hey!" she snapped, eyes blazing. "Easy kid! I said 'up for it' not 'up to it.'"

Semantics. Goddamn semantics.

I apologized, chastened. The council's decision wasn't Michonne's fault; the decision actually made sense, to be honest, even though it frustrated me no end. Not that I actually wanted the job, just some respect. Just something to make me feel like an adult, a productive, contributing member of the community — not just the crazy girl Daryl took out on runs sometimes.

Michonne brought an empathetic hand to rest on my arm. "I know you're on edge right now. I am too. But are you _willing_ to go out further? For longer?"

I weighed it: the risk of travelling further afield against the possible gains of finding the Governor and…but then what? Besides my dark dreams, we didn't have any firm plans of what would happen if we were able to find him. Bring him to justice, certainly, but what would that look like? Perhaps the answer would take us too far into parts of ourselves we didn't want to venture, not tonight.

The farther out we went, the greater the likelihood was of something going wrong. We could get lost, run into another, less friendly group. We could run out of supplies, or get separated. Something could go down at the prison while we were away, and we'd have no way of communicating with them at all. In terms of resources, we'd have to either be carrying more than a few cans of beans and a first aid kit, which was impractical. Hell, we might even run into some bad weather we weren't prepared for.

I looked up, and a "hell yeah" was hot on my lips. But I bit it back, because that's something a cocky girl would say, and I was level-headed and rational. So I just nodded.

* * *

After another day and a half, we headed back. We'd found nothing this time, absolutely nothing, and it tasted sour and stale in my mouth. Defeat usually does. The farmhouse, though, had turned up some preserves in the basement — homemade pickles and peaches and a few jars of jam and other things — that we bagged up and took with us, about a dozen or so in total. A convenience store on what had been the main drag of a picturesque little rural community gave us a few candy bars, a new pair of bolt cutters, and eighteen packs of cigarettes. I stuffed these into my already overcrowded duffel, the one I wore slung across my back while I rode.

As though they could sense us getting closer, Flame and Honey started kicking up a little more enthusiastically by the time we'd reached the end of the prison road. Nervously, I adjusted the reins a bit, calming my girl down as much as I could before we headed up towards the walker-infested field. Then, we'd have to pick up speed, and I wanted Honey to be as calm as possible when I needed her to canter.

Carl was happier and more eager to see the horses again than he was to see us, though we did earn a smile for the candy bars. He and Rick offered to rub them both down and settle them in for the evening, and we gratefully accepted. Michonne and I were both in need of a shower and some rest; three long days of riding and dwindling hopes had exhausted us.

First, though, I headed down to the cafeteria and kitchen, handing over the preserves and remaining bars to Carol, who welcomed them with a flat expression. I wasn't quite forgiven in that quarter, I could clearly see, but we were on the way. New day, new me…new choices.

I kept back one jar of peaches, though, and listened to it rattle around in the duffel the entire way up the staircase. People were finishing up their jobs for the day, heading down to the cafeteria for something to eat, so the upper level of our cellblock was quiet. Except for the quiet scraping of a knife.

Gently, I tugged back the shower curtain, and blue eyes met mine. I started; I hadn't really dared hope he would be back yet, or that he would even still be in our cell. My bed was still made up with my purple blanket; my boxes of clothes were right where I'd left them, untouched on the floor; the kitten was still hanging in there on the wall. It was like I hadn't left; like I hadn't been kicked out or abandoned.

Silence seemed best, and it had always worked out for us in the past. I sat down on my bunk as he went back to his task, sharpening one of his hunting knives on a whetstone. Rummaging through the duffel, I grabbed the last jar of peaches, along with four or five slippery cigarette packs — the rest fell to the floor with a series of light thuds.

Naturally.

"I just…I just wanted to say I'm sorry," I said quickly, thrusting the items in his general direction. "For everything. For picking that fight, for crying, for being such a hot-head out there and for…for getting after you about Brandy." He finally looked up, but as per usual, his expression was essentially unreadable. "I'm really sorry, Daryl, really."

He hesitated a long while before answering, chewing the inside of his cheek in contemplation and gazing at my outstretched offerings. I willed him to forgiveness, to forgetfulness, so that that terrible interaction a few nights before could be wiped from our history. Remember the girl who held you tight, I thought. Remember the girl that you held tight.

Tired, dirty, corded hands reached out and accepted the jar and the smokes; a small smile bloomed on his face, and clemency burst in his eyes. With a nod, I was absolved. But this new me, with her new choices, was loath to allow this to pass completely forgotten. I had said some things that needed to be unsaid, so that we could both move forward on more even ground. "I'm not sure what this is either," I said, echoing his confession of months before. "But I do know that I _like_ spending 95% of my time with you and sharing a cell, and I really, really don't like it when we argue."

He cleared his throat, setting down most of the presents beside him, except for one cigarette, which he slipped from the package and lit. "Sorry…for what I said. Didn't mean it. You ain't…" He let it trail off into a curl of smoke, as he handed me the cigarette. I scooted down from the bunk, settling cross-legged on the floor in front of him. I waited for the rest, but it was as though he couldn't bring himself to repeat it, couldn't bring himself back to that point.

"A crazy bitch?" I offered brightly.

His mouth twitched at that, though whether it was guilt or amusement, I couldn't say, and I didn't really care. "Yeah. That."

Apologies weren't my forte, and apparently, they weren't his either, but we'd certainly done our best thus far. Nothing left but for me to quietly offer to move out. I'd thought more and more about it as Michonne and I had journeyed home, and though it send little jolts of regret and discontentment up and down my spine as I did so, the notion that living in such close proximity was causing this tension just wouldn't leave my mind. Me living down in A-Block would afford Daryl and I the space I was beginning to suspect we would sorely need.

I told him my idea, and it sat there in the quiet of our cell, untethered and unsure of where to land, for a few beats. Daryl puffed away, studied his fingers as they pinched the cigarette. "Looks nice in here," he said finally.

It _did_ look nicer. He'd actually tried to straighten his own blankets today; there were no clothes on the floor. Looking around, it told the story of two functional adults, comfortable enough with each other to reside in close quarters, making a home in concrete and solitude. There was no indication that we'd lashed out so forcibly at each other, cut each other down in the space of just a few minutes. We may not have known what was really going on between us, but there was something, and it lived here with us.

I didn't want to leave.

But I wanted him to tell me to stay.

"Maybe…" he said gruffly, "maybe we could try it again."

And we did.

* * *

 ** _Feedback, comments, reviews are appreciated. I'd love to hear your thoughts :)_**


	24. And Now We Know

_**Chapter XXIV: And Now We Know**_

Carol was angry at me. It didn't take too long for it to boil over; three days after Michonne and I returned, I headed down to the kitchen to double-check the List before Daryl, Zach, Levi, and a few other new people headed out for a run. I wasn't going — Julia and I were preparing to begin a slow transition to slightly lighter clothing, hoping to roll those out within the month. To this end, we needed to take a full inventory of all clothing items within the prison, as well as items needed on future runs. Luke, Molly, Mika, Lizzie, and Carl were growing fast, and shoes were going to be in high demand soon for them in particular. This would necessitate a good few days of work in the closet cells, as well as another few spent surveying the group members to see what was needed.

The kitchen was quiet when I walked in: breakfast was finished, and the seats were empty, so I poured myself a cup of coffee and settled in with the clipboard. Not much had been added since my conversation a week before with Carol. The supply run group was headed towards a small grocery store about eighteen miles out, with a brief stop at a hardware store a little ways down the road. Their main priority was gardening implements: Rick and Carl were eager to start planting once the ground had begun to thaw, which should arrive within the next few weeks.

I decided to savour my coffee a little longer, nursing the mug and taking a break by flipping idly through a paperback novel someone had left in the middle of the table. It had been awhile since I'd actually sat down to read something, though the library was growing everyday. Perhaps I should take a little trip down there this afternoon…

A drawer slammed in the kitchen area. Daryl and I had brought back the cabinet unit a few months ago, scavenged from one of the houses in the nearby development. It had delighted Carol no end back then, leaving her much cheerier than she was in the present moment. She slammed another drawer closed, and glanced over at me tersely.

"Everything okay?" I asked cautiously, pushing the novel back to the middle of the table and downing the last dregs of my coffee. "You good?"

Carol levelled a steely glare in my direction, took a few steps towards me. Gone was meek and mild Mrs Peletier, and most days, I was glad of it — today, though, I was nervous. "You hurt him," she replied sharply. "He left because of you, and then you just…you…"

Shame burned my cheeks. I'd apologized to Daryl, we'd worked it out, and most of the lingering awkwardness amongst the other inmates had been largely dissipated by a knockdown, drag-out fight between Levi and another young guy named Elliott — over Brandy. It had taken place while Michonne and I had been away, and while Brandy and I hadn't yet had a chance to discuss the situation in detail, the excitement caused by an actual fistfight breaking out in the prison yard had utterly distracted everyone from the vocal argument between Daryl and Riley and whatever weird shit was between them.

But Carol was still upset, and I really couldn't blame her. She and Daryl had a bond that I didn't fully understand: at times, it seemed flirtatious enough to develop into something else, and I had to remind myself that she was closer to his age, she was beautiful and kind, and that in comparison, I was a gangly, cranky kid twenty years younger than him and it was natural that he wouldn't be interested. At other times, what passed between them seemed more innocent, friendly, or even what I imagined a positive, functional brother-sister relationship would look like (I had no experience there). The oscillation gave me a headache, but it also brought them both peace, so I stopped bothering to try and understand it. After all, whatever was going between Daryl and I was mysterious and confusing enough — I couldn't schedule figuring out him and Carol on top of that.

Underpinning their entire bond, though, was a consistent need to protect each other. For Daryl, this often meant offering physical protection; Carol's priority was emotional support. He had difficulty articulating his feelings, even identifying them — he was sensitive, but unused to confronting things properly. Carol helped him out there. And in doing what I had done — yelling at him, dredging up grief, baiting him to sort out whatever was going on between us — I'd threatened his emotional security. Carol couldn't have that.

In a way, I'd been anticipating the confrontation for days. She hadn't spoken to me since Michonne and I had returned, hadn't smiled at me since that first, tense one when I'd handed over the preserves she'd requested. Her anger had been gathering like a storm on the horizon, and now I was facing down the brunt of it.

"I know," I said quietly, running a finger idly down the length of the chipped mug handle. "I know. And I apologized. I fixed it."

"You can't unsay it."

I looked at her, and realized (largely from her cold eyes and sharp tone; very persuasive, almost leonine in that regard) that she did not want me to explain myself or apologize to her all over again. There was no explanation suitable, in her view, that could elucidate clearly what I'd risked in engaging Daryl in the way that I had. I'd hurt him, had brought him back to a sadder place. I had risked causing him to retreat back into himself, to return to that aggressive, resentful man we'd all known at the quarry — the one who had narrowed his values to a very small pool, and fished from that infrequently. I had risked breaking him, and that required begging.

"Carol," I said, standing to face her. Intuitively, I felt she'd respect that more. "I'm sorry. I know what I did was completely and utterly shitty, and I feel really bad about it. I don't know why I did it, and I can't undo it, but" — I swallowed, exceedingly nervous — "it happened, and it won't happen again."

Once, I'd pitied Carol, felt better and braver than her, even. As we'd combed the woods for her daughter, she'd cowered back at camp, and it had taken me a long time to come to understand that I could not possibly hope to comprehend the profound complexity of her courage, to simply wake up and once more face a world without Sophia in it. After that little girl walked out of the barn, dead for too long, I'd watched Carol's heart shatter, and the next morning, I watched her get up, make breakfast, and keep going.

It was that strength and courage that I now felt full force — it was a brick wall of love that I was just banging my head against. I would have to earn her trust, not even her forgiveness, because her protectiveness of Daryl was far more wilful and solid than my fumbling advances toward him. I waited, my eyes trained on hers impatiently, but fully knowing this was the price I had to pay.

She nodded, and her face relaxed. "You can't do that sort of thing to him; if you want to talk to him, talk to him, but don't corner him." I blushed, penitent — this was coming to me from another survivor of abuse, a woman with a keen insight into Daryl's emotional state. I did feel guilty about cornering him, putting him between a wall and trying to force him into a confrontation.

But again, I would do better; I would be better.

Outside, in the brisk air, I took a deep, fortifying breath. Leaving the cafeteria felt akin to escaping from a lion's den, or hell, a herd of walkers. If we ever did encounter the Governor again, I figured the most efficient plan of attack would simply be to let Carol loose on him.

"Zach!" He turned, shaggy brown hair flopping a bit in the wind, visibly regretful at having to leave the pretty blonde girl in front of him out in the yard. He and Beth were so predictable: they always made a long goodbye before he left on runs, complete with dozens of kisses and murmured endearments that Daryl liked to roll his eyes at. I brandished the List aloft. "Here you go."

"Anything surprising?" he asked, taking the proffered handmade spreadsheet and scanning it quickly. I shook my head. "And you're sure you're not coming?"

I sighed. I'd already had this conversation eight times — six of them with Zach himself. He was convinced that there was something deeper going on beneath my refusal to tag along on this particular run. Carefully, each time, I had explained that I had far too much to do down in the closet cells; I was exhausted after my search with Michonne; and that being in charge of community logistics didn't necessarily require me to go out on every single goddamn run we decided to conduct. I knew Zach was probing, trying to figure out what had really gone on between Daryl and I to cause that initial fight, and then to smooth things over enough that we were actually still sharing a cell. He'd even interrogated Brandy one afternoon.

I liked the kid, but his persistence in this was beginning to get on my nerves. "No, Zach, I'm not coming. I've got a ton of shit here to do," I replied sharply. "Make sure Daryl sees this, please."

Focusing on giving him space had certainly benefitted interactions between Daryl and I over the last couple of days. We still spoke to each other and shared a cigarette and a few drinks most evenings, but other than that, I was spending a lot of my time working downstairs, or hanging out in Brandy's cell when that was finished. Since there had been no other arguments, I figured we were good now — though there was a lingering sense of tension still floating around, as we came to terms with the fact that we'd both now admitted to there being _something_ (albeit a befuddling _something_ ) between us.

Jesus. The world had ended, and yet here I was, still confused over a boy.

* * *

Inventory took us four solid days of work, even after the initial afternoon of preparation following my altercation with Carol. Julia and I were exhausted by the end of it, though Luke, Molly, and Mika had made themselves indispensable as our runners, dashing from one length of the prison to the other, checking on orders and updates and requests, saving us an immense amount of walking.

On the end of that fourth day, I told Julia and the kids to clock off early. All that was left was a quick resorting of baby clothes, our smallest collection — with the tiniest items, the ones that Judith had long outgrown, being put away for future infants. As I folded minuscule sleeper sets and undershirts, I thought about that possibility. Other babies being born, this time into a solid, developing community. Dr. S and Hershel working together to ensure safe, sterile labours; babies nursed by surviving mothers.

I couldn't picture myself going through all of that. Before, I'd had no real desire to be a mom; it just hadn't been in the cards for me. The career I was aiming for would, I'd hoped, see me travelling all over the world, often to dangerous places. The idea of leaving a kid at home while I pursued that kind of life, no matter how supportive a partner I had, just seemed a bit risky. I enjoyed children, and yet had never experienced that pull, that drive or desire I assumed all moms-to-be felt throughout their lives — that innate knowledge and instinct to become a mother.

Carol had probably felt it, I thought as I drew a roll of packing tape across the lid of a cardboard box. I remembered Sophia, quiet and shy and sweet, leaning on her mother's shoulder or wrapped up in her arms. Carol would've done anything to protect her daughter, and for as long as the world had let her, she had. That kind of fierceness left me in awe, even as it left me in the cold. I wondered, would I ever experience anything remotely close to that brand of love?

With the last box done, I surveyed our handiwork. We now had three closet cells — men's, women's, and children's. Each of our three helpers had been put in charge of making a colourful sign for the bars of each cell, and inside, I had written and posted inventories of all items contained within those cells. A fourth cell had been designated for storage of out of season clothes, and those baby clothes no longer needed. It was accessible and functional, and I was pretty proud of the work we'd put into it. Hopefully, such a system would cut down on arguments, prevent people from hoarding clothes in their tiny cells, and would enable those items we did possess communally to last much longer.

The prison was truly starting to come together as a genuine community, and despite my reticence of the autumn months, I was beginning to enjoy living there. Forging connections with new people had helped me return to some semblance of joviality, as I was nearly forced to be outgoing and amicable; ejected from the comfort of the social shorthand I'd developed with my original group. I had to entertain; to amuse; to bond. And I liked it.

The anxiety and embarrassment I'd experienced over Rick's revelation about my lack of a council job was gradually starting to abate. I had accepted that perhaps I was too impulsive to take on a position of leadership within the community, and that I needed to work on separating my ego from my work. After all, that approach was one of the issues I'd taken with Zach's group — that they were more concerned with the perception of others' than with the effectiveness and tenability of their performance. I did like the notoriety that came from participating in runs and I liked the way that people would watch Michonne and I ride up the road, home from another expedition, like returning warriors. Before, I'd been an avid reader, and preferred adventurous stories more than any other kind. I could see how that developed into a taste for the extreme.

Awareness, though, is more than half the battle fought, so I figured that my penchant for frequently choosing the riskier or more drastic route was well in hand and had devolved, due to our relatively peaceful lifestyle, into just a mere flair for the dramatic.

A-block was quiet at this time of day, nearly bedtime for most of the prison population. We were all working hard throughout the day, preparing for spring and planting; clearing more cellblocks in anticipation of our numbers continuing to increase. As dusk fell, most retreated into their individual cells — finishing dinner, cleaning up from the day, chatting with friends, reading, or just settling in for sleep. Long days of work saw most of the inmates fast asleep by eight o'clock or so.

I stretched and yawned; though the days were still quite short, I figured it must be around six-thirty. The cafeteria would be officially closed in another fifteen minutes, leaving Carol's clean up crew enough time to rinse the dishes and organize for the next day. There would always be leftovers kicking around, I supposed, and I wasn't exactly ravenous yet. Time for my little treat.

Thus far, we'd cleared A-block, C-block, and D-block; the latter two were for living, and the former for storage and future overflow. B-block had yet to be officially cleared. It was closer to the Tombs — the caved in, exposed areas once comprising E-block and some offices, as well as another showering area. Those were our most troubling areas, because they were open to the elements and thus, walkers. The past couple of months had seen dedicated groups focusing on continuing to clear those shadowy halls, as well as building up fencing and blockades around the north-facing side, to keep them as clean as possible. I was interested in B-block, though. Things were already beginning to get cramped upstairs, and the prospect of clearing it was very promising. Having the extra cellblock would enable more and more people to spread out, cut down on arguments like the one that had broken out between Levi and Elliott, or Daryl and myself. I'd resolved that at some point over the next few days, I would take a look through B-block, try to ascertain what would need to be done to bring it up to living standards.

I leaned back against the wall, wiping a slight sheen of sweat from my forehead. It had been a busy series of days, and I figured the next couple would be quiet. The runs were done for another week and a half or so, as the trip to the hardware store had been mightily successful — Daryl and the group had come back bearing huge flats of seed packets, and Rick, Carl, and Hershel had been holed up together since their arrival planning a substantial gardening venture.

Michonne and I were planning another search, but not for another two weeks or so. It was set to be our longest yet, about nine or ten days in total, as we were hoping to head out possibly as far as Manchester. We'd combed the surrounding area — towards Newnan and out towards Experiment; even down as far as Orchard Hill — fairly extensively. Branching out even further was a natural next step.

The prospect of leaving again, on our ninth trip in just a few months, was, for the first time ever, starting to weigh on me. The prison was getting more and more comfortable; the people more and more familiar; and the routine and relationships I'd established were making it harder to leave. The argument between Daryl and I had actually seemed, ironically, to encourage others to reach out to us a little more, as though it had reminded the intimidated newcomers that despite our bravado and experience, we were just normal people capable of petty squabbles and pissing each other off.

I liked working with Julia and Mr Jacobsen; the kids made me laugh; Brandy and I were moving close to something really special; and the daily showers were a major plus, too. One thing I didn't enjoy, however, was how secretive I had had to become about my drinking.

During my massive cleanup of our cell, I'd gotten rid of my empties (even the ones I had hidden), and the empty bottle of whisky. Since then, Daryl and I had just been taking our nightcaps from the pantry, like everyone else. Just two cans for an evening, maybe I'd pour myself a mug of wine. Daryl hadn't overtly expressed a concern that I was drinking too much, but this small change in our routine signalled an awareness that having a twofer stored in our cell, as well as a bottle (or box) of wine sitting by my bedside was an item of some note. Hershel had also begun sharing a few stories, within my earshot, of his struggles with alcoholism in the past.

I couldn't be an alcoholic, though, I thought, even as I pulled out my box from the fourth cell. It was labelled _Baby clothes 2_ , though it was not taped closed like the other one. I'd pushed it under the bunk, then shoved in a few shoeboxes and a small laundry basket to conceal it. Inside, I'd secreted a few more prizes from the farmhouse where Michonne and I had stayed, and where I'd found more than just preserves. It was because of these that Daryl's jar of peaches had been clinking around in my duffel bag that night as I returned to our cell.

Eight bottles of Crown Royal, four bottles of gin, and three jars of what I strongly suspected was homemade moonshine. Whoever had lived in that farmhouse had obviously been going through something similar to what I was now. I just thanked my lucky stars they'd left their stash behind.

But I wasn't an alcoholic. Couldn't be.

I untwisted the lid on my second bottle of Crown. It was the only thing I'd touched so far, and it was heavenly. It was technically a masochistic experience, I suppose, the way I longed for the pain and the punishment of the burn down my throat, took pleasure in the way it pooled in my stomach, a rich, golden fire. When I drank, I realized quite clearly that I fucking hated myself. And I loved that clarity.

I hated my inadequacy, my selfishness. Hated my ego and hated my impulsiveness. I hated the way I didn't deserve a man like Daryl; hated the way I couldn't make a move to save my soul; I hated that I'd picked that goddamn fight. I hated that I drank alone in a prison cellblock, and I hated that I'd once looked down on someone as purely brave and admirable as Carol. Hated that I had to take so much damn pride in clothing lists and organized boxes. Hated that I had to leave again; hated that the Governor was still alive. I hated that Chloe and RJ were dead, and that both their deaths were on my hands. I hated that I hadn't pushed Andrea harder, hadn't striven to make her see. I hated that Brandy had two guys fighting over her. I hated that Judith liked Beth and Carol better; hated that I would never have a child of my own; hated that I didn't want to be a mother. I hated myself so deeply, so darkly, so essentially that I couldn't even bring myself to cry about it anymore.

I drank till I hit the narrowing of the bottle, then screwed the lid back on and appraised the sealed mason jars of clear liquid. I had never, ever tried anything like moonshine in my life — that shit was called "white lightning" for a reason. But there was a first time for everything, right? The long days of work, Carol's disgusted looks in my direction before our little powwow, hours and hours of trying to be cheerful, entertaining, engaging — I was tired. I was bone tired. And I wanted to forget, just for a little while, that the world had ended and that I wasn't up for any challenges in it besides killing lone walkers with plenty of notice and counting t-shirts and jeans.

Pretty sure I died at the first sip.

It shot through me like a bullet, racing through my veins and setting my nerves aflame. After I finished coughing, I took another, and another, until RJ's face couldn't materialize in my memory and Andrea was just some woman's name. I took a fifth sip, and a sixth, and a seventh, and then I heard it. I fumbled with the lid, because that was the priority. It could be Hershel shuffling down the hall, or Julia coming back to check on me. It could be Carl or Carol or anybody, and I couldn't be found cross-legged on the floor, sipping fire in the dark.

The bottles clinked together brightly as I shoved the box back under the bunk, suddenly aware that my nose was running and my fingers were trembling. Over the past couple of months, I'd come to learn that I was a maudlin drunk, and so half-expected to break out into a sob at the first initiation of conversation with whoever was coming up the block. _Focus_ , I thought dimly. _Normal pleasantries._ Smoothing down my hair, I turned to greet my guest.

He smelled awful, first of all, and he was a little handsy.

With a strangled cry, I pushed him back square in the chest, suddenly aware that I was unarmed down here — why was I unarmed down here? Dead, scabby, grimy hands reached out for every part of me, and with no other recourse, I found myself hitting the floor as he grabbed at my lower left leg. Fireworks of pain exploded in both my kneecaps at the contact, but I didn't have time to complain. I scrabbled along the floor of the cell, knocking a small tower of cardboard boxes over with a sharp punch to the bottom, turning back to watch them topple down right into his face. It was enough of a distraction to buy me a split second, as my visitor contended with his hands suddenly disappearing from view. Not the brightest crayon in the box, I thought inanely.

"Son of a bitch." I struggled to my feet and scanned the room for anything that could be used as a blunt object to his temple. I looked down at him — he was pretty far gone, perhaps one of the Woodbury people who'd been lost during the attack, down in the Tombs. His face was mottled, half of his jaw had been loosened and exposed, and I could see, beneath the tatters of his shirt, a vicious hole in his stomach, as well as flaps of rotten, decaying flesh hanging from his arms and neck.

He moaned and writhed on the floor, trying desperately to sort out just what exactly kind of roadblock he'd encountered with the boxes. Good. That gave me a chance. I whirled around, seeing nothing but more cardboard boxes, which held only Judith's clothes and extra pairs of shoes. Nothing that I could use to drive some deadly, brain-battering force into this guy's head. My fingers played idly at my waist; why hadn't I brought my Bowie? Because it didn't look as cool without the thigh holster, I remembered dully, and because I hadn't felt like dealing with that down here.

My visitor had figured out how to get back onto his feet, and was now lunging towards me again. I batted his hands away, backing up until I'd reached the end wall of the cell, watching cagily as he still found himself struggling to overcome the small mountain of boxes in front of him. One minute more, though, and he'd be able to press through them, lunge at me one more time, and then I'd be screwed. Unless I could get my hands around the sides of his head, far enough away from his snapping jaws, and I could slam him back into the lip of the entry wall. The slightest wrong move, though, and I could fall face first into his teeth.

I gave him a solid kick to the knees, watching him tumble back down to the floor, buying myself another minute. Quarters were too tight for me to consider walking around him and backing out into the cellblock, and really, that didn't make much sense. I had more control the closer I was to him.

My nose and eyes were streaming at this point; furiously, I rubbed at my eyes until I could see straight again. The lightning was striking in my stomach; thunder was pounding in my head. With the clarity of this storm driving me on, my eyes lit on the only viable option I had to hand: my stash. The box wasn't all the way under the bunk; the lid was still cresting open. One of those bottles smashed against the side of his head could disorient him long enough for me to select a long enough shard of glass to finish the job.

I hesitated.

I fucking hesitated.

There was no guarantee I'd be able to build up a stash like that again, and if I did kill him with one of those, people would be bound to ask how I'd done it. A walker down in a cleared cellblock was going to warrant an investigation, looking for breaches, and the council would likely call me in for an interview, find out all the details. The walker himself would tell the story — glass sticking out of his skull would provide a pretty clear indication of what had gone down. I would have to explain that I'd been drinking alone in an isolated part of the prison, at night, and that I'd had to reluctantly break one of my bottles to protect myself.

He took advantage of my hesitation and wrapped one hand tightly in my long, loose curls. My scalp burned at the force, and bile rose in my throat at his closeness. I'd never been this close before, and I couldn't help it — I screamed.

I tried to wrench myself away from him, but his grip was fast, and the other hand was heading for my hair too. Once he had thought, I'd be gone, I'd be fucking gone, and he was going to rip my body to pieces, peel the flesh from my bones, and then I'd be one of them too and I'd make my way upstairs and —

"Fuck!"

His fist spasmed in my hair, and he fell to the ground with a thud. "Oh, Christ, oh, sweetheart, oh my God!" I couldn't see, I couldn't see, why couldn't I see? Soft arms wrapped around me, and we sobbed together, falling down together, his putrid blood soaking into Judith's old clothes, and to cap it all off, the moonshine burbled back up and spread on the floor, a shameful stain.

* * *

"Hand me that towel, Daryl." I pointed to my red one, hanging from a hook near the door. He obliged quickly, still visibly shaken by the sight of Julia and I hurtling into the cafeteria, disturbing him and Zach, the only ones still awake besides us, reviewing a local phone book to identify potential hits for future runs. I'd been covered in tears, vomit, and a little of my own blood — when I'd hit the floor the first time, I'd apparently bit my own lip pretty hard, though I had no memory of it — and he'd wordlessly scooped me up from Julia's grip and into his own, asking her questions she really couldn't answer while Zach ran to Hershel's cell.

The damage wasn't too bad. I had a pair of wicked contusions on both kneecaps, an urgent need for a shower, and a hell of a mess downstairs to clean up in the morning, but other than that, I was fine. Perfectly fine, as I kept trying to reassure everyone. Hershel took Julia down to the kitchen for a strong cup of tea and a sedative, after I'd thanked her with the tightest embrace I could manage, apology and gratitude racing each other from my lips. She kissed me on the forehead, wished me a goodnight, and they'd left Daryl and I alone in our cell.

"What the hell happened?" he asked quietly, handing me the towel at my request.

I shrugged and stuck a hand beneath my bunk, looking for the small basket of miscellaneous supplies I'd gathered for us — our toothbrushes and soaps; band-aids and hair elastics; and a small, slim pair of kitchen shears. Holding these aloft, I told him I wasn't quite sure. "I figure he was left behind after the Governor's first attack," I said evenly, laying the towel out on the floor in front of me. I selected an elastic and gathered my hair back into a low ponytail. "He wasn't far gone enough to be a prisoner, and he was wearing street clothes anyhow." I picked up the shears again.

"You gonna cut your hair?" Daryl's tone was incredulous, and I suppose, the idea that after a close call like I'd just had, to be thinking of a makeover did seem a bit over the top.

I nodded, snapping and testing the scissors. "He grabbed it, D. That's how he got me so close," I replied softly, after a pause. "He had me by the fucking hair."

Blue eyes met mine, and I felt my stomach drop. I had almost died tonight, and it wasn't because of my hair. If I'd had my wits about me, I would've had the wherewithal to break one of those bottles from the off, or used my sober coordination and balance to drive the walker back into the wall. The alcohol had clouded my judgement, though, and given him the time to get close enough to grab me by the hair.

But this was my scapegoat, because I couldn't tell Daryl the truth. I couldn't bear the shame. So I nodded, raised the scissors to the back of my head, realizing nearly too late that I hadn't brought a mirror and that we didn't have one in our cell. "Stop." He stood, kissing the cigarette he'd just lit one more time before handing it me. "Gimme those," he said lowly, and I slipped the shears into his hand. "How short?"

We sat there on the floor together, me in the middle of the towel so that it would more efficiently capture the curls falling with each slice of the scissors. Daryl started by sawing through the ponytail I'd made, then went a little higher until I could feel his breath on my bare neck. "More," I said quietly, and he started cautiously working around my ears, trimming back the thick curls as deftly as he could manage. He handed the scissors back to me when he got too close to my bangs, and then together we figured out how to brush my hair forward and then trim them down that way.

It took about twenty minutes; the cigarette was long stubbed out by the time we finished. Gently, I ran my fingers through what was left of it — no more curls, no more bounce, just a thatch of brown hair on top of my head — to get out any loose remains. Tomorrow, I would have Brandy take another look at it, try to get it into some sort of style, but for now, I could breathe. The hair that the dead man had touched was long gone, bundled up into the red towel; I resolved to bring it outside tomorrow, spread it out for the birds to use for their nests.

"Thank you," I murmured, suddenly exhausted. My bunk looked welcoming, but I knew I needed a quick shower before climbing into it. Already, the cell was beginning to stink of puke and blood. Self-consciously, I apologized to Daryl, but he just waved it away, chewed on his thumb.

I busied myself with grabbing a bar of soap, a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt to sleep in. The prospect of warm water and a deep sleep was more intoxicating than the Crown and the moonshine, and I was eager to get there as quickly as possible. But I wasn't getting off that easy.

"You smell like hooch, girl," he muttered.

Denial was bright and cheery on my lips. "Just the puke, D," I said with a smile, as though that was all it took, to fool one of the smartest people I'd ever met. A pretty little fiction, that was me.

* * *

The weeks passed quickly, melting into warmer weather that brought a smile to every face and a spring to every step. Rick was working hard on the garden, and a new family of pigs was making their home in a small lean-to out in the prison yard. It wouldn't be long before we started to see a yield.

Michonne and I left for more two more searches, travelling down to Manchester and over to Franklin. We saw nothing, and were gone for nearly a fortnight each time. We were able to bring back treats; we didn't have the room to support major supply hauls, so the two of us focused instead on small surprises for the kids — comic books, crayons, skipping ropes, candy, stuffed toys, and new clothes. I always made it a priority to bring back some cigarettes for Daryl.

The last trip lasted nearly seventeen days, and took us all the way to the edge of Lake Harding. This marked the Alabama border, and instigated an intense debate about whether or not we would pursue the Governor over into other states. I was beginning to lose hope, particularly since we weren't getting any promising signs anywhere we looked. "He didn't just disappear into thin air," Michonne argued, when I brought this up one evening, as we camped out in a former roadhouse diner.

"No, but he may have died," I pointed out. "Hell, he may have been wounded or something during the attack. He might be a walker at this point, and there's no way we can track a specific one of them."

The argument that had broken out in response to this was swift and vicious, sufficiently so to put a subsequent trip on the back burner for several more weeks. It was well into April by the time we actually started thinking about another one; things were starting to grow here and there in Rick's garden, and we had a few new members trickling in every other week. More and more of our prison population owed their safety to Daryl, which resulted in him being heartily greeted and lauded wherever he went. It was amusing to watch him attempt to get comfortable with being generally well-liked, and I couldn't help but think back to the early days at the farm, when he'd been cantankerous and unpredictable, even with Carol and I.

"Good morning, Daryl!"

"Hey, Daryl!"

"Morning, man!"

I grinned, laughing slightly at the tension in his face as he attempted to acknowledge each of these greetings, volleyed at him from multiple quarters as we passed through the cafeteria. A few nodded at me, but with nowhere near the same enthusiasm as his fan club. "Popular guy," I observed cheerfully, grabbing a fresh cheese biscuit for each of us. "Sure you can pencil me in this morning?"

"Shut up."

We were heading out to consult with Rick, preparing for a supply run that afternoon. Once again, I'd decided to hold back, but this time because Carol had asked me for help in the kitchen and I was eager to continue rebuilding something positive between us. Besides, it was just a simple run to a nearby farmstead, where Daryl, Zach, Levi, and a few others were aiming to gather some basic supplies for our own growing agricultural endeavours: boards for pens, sacks of feed, chicken wire, miscellaneous tools and implements, that sort of thing. It was a one-stop run; shouldn't take them more than a couple of hours.

I had a copy of the List that I'd done up with Rick a few days prior, but I always liked to finalize them before the run group headed out. We found him in the horse's shed, basically just one stall with a roof, brushing down Flame's shiny chestnut coat. I ducked inside, out of the light rain that had begun to fall, and Daryl followed suit. Cloudbursts were common this time of year, especially as the warmer weather started to return. Rick gazed out appreciatively, even as Daryl shook out his shaggy hair in irritation.

"Looks like we'll get a good soaking," Rick observed with a smile.

"Carol's really excited about it all," I replied, sweeping a hand out over the expanse of his freshly-tilled garden. "We're going to start preparing some new menus and rationing today."

Together, we looked over the List one more time. Rick pointed out that he was also interested in any plants Daryl or the others found growing in the farmhouse yard. "We've got plenty of tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and potatoes," he explained, "but we don't have a huge crop of onions and any fruit other than some berry plants. Still lots of room for more."

I jotted down the request at the bottom of the page, and then we started to head back up to the prison yard. The rain had petered off by this point, and the day was already proving to be the warmest we'd had in a while. Not cool enough for Daryl to leave the leather jacket behind when taking his bike, but getting closer to the early summer weather I was craving.

There in the yard, the members of Daryl's supply run group were preparing to load up: the silver truck was parked near the gate, with Levi behind the wheel, and behind him was the green Hyundai. A woman named Kathryn would be driving that today. Daryl had found her and a couple of other people about eight days ago, and, after Dr. S had given her some stitches in her right arm, she was raring to go, to prove herself. She seemed level-headed enough, so none of us were really worried, and a low-key operation like the farmhouse was the best venue to test out a new recruit.

I wished Daryl good luck as he swung a leg over the motorcycle, earning myself a nod and a grunt in return. He disengaged the kickstand and hit the choke; the signal to everyone else that it was high time to go. Zach piled in with Levi; Tim (the teacher, off this afternoon), a man from Woodbury called Albie, and a woman who had arrived with Kathryn's group, whose name I hadn't caught yet — all got into the Hyundai. Brandy, fashionably late as always, burst from the cafeteria doors wearing a broad smile and a lime green sweater. "Coming! Hey, girlie" — she caught sight of me and enveloped me in a tight embrace — "Long time no see. When he wakes up, tell Elliott I ran away, okay — preferably with Levi? I want him to miss me. Real bad."

Daryl's back stiffened at her late arrival and ebullient interactions with everyone on the run. I knew he still found her overwhelming, but I'd asked him to find a little more patience with her. Brandy was my friend, same as he was, I had gently explained one evening. She meant well, and I cared about her, and because of that, I hoped he'd find the capacity for a little more tolerance where she was concerned. Besides, I reasoned now, waving off the group and turning to walk into the kitchen — Brandy's high spirits came in quite handy in the rather grim facade of this place we called home.

Carol and I spent a tense three hours with our heads together in the cafeteria, predicting Rick's yields and planning what to do if some of the crops failed. Daryl was still making hunting trips every couple of days, and the squirrels, birds, and fish he brought back were keeping us well fed. The pigs wouldn't be ready for slaughtering for a long time, but once they were, we'd have plenty of pork and bacon.

"Once we have the vegetables coming in, we'll try to deemphasize grains at each meal," I suggested. "Oatmeal in the morning with some fruit, canned or fresh, and then maybe rice or pasta with supper. We'll keep a little more than half the cucumbers for pickling, and we're still good for canned spaghetti sauce, so I wouldn't worry about holding back the tomatoes this year."

Carol nodded in agreement, furthering the idea that we work our way through our current supply of dried fruits (sultanas, prunes, and some candied pineapple) before breaking into the new stuff. "Or we could alternate," she continued. "Raisins on a Monday, fresh blueberries on a Tuesday, and so on."

"Sure. And Daryl was telling me he found an apple orchard a couple of miles out, about ten miles past the development. Hopefully the deer will leave them alone and we can harvest some of those. Maybe even transplant our own trees."

Tentatively, I mused a little while later, curling up in my bunk with a book, after a cool shower and a hot cup of coffee — tentatively, things were looking bright for us. Our pantry was busting at the seams; Daryl was having good luck with the local wildlife; and our runs were consistently coming back both safe and bearing useful items. The houses in the nearby development were actually proving to be our biggest prizes, though they were nearly fully cleared now. When people were heading to refugee camps, most weren't worried about food beyond a few snacks for the car; medication beyond prescriptions and aspirin; and any other supplies besides basic clothing and sentimental items. This meant that everything from fuel to gardening implements to kitchen staples were ours for the taking. Rick was handling the agricultural duties well so far with just him and Carl, but we'd already had a few others express interest in aiding, too. This time next year, we might actually to call this place a proper farm.

Tim, the teacher, had also taken on the role of librarian for our growing collection of books, and just yesterday, he'd pressed a well-worn copy of a Brontë novel into my hands. "You mentioned it was one of your favourites," he said with a warm smile.

I did like Agnes. She was predictable — warm and sweet, simple in the things she wanted. The kids she looked after were holy terrors, though. Reading about her once again brought me back to a senior year lit class, when I'd chosen to write about the experiences of domestic help exemplified in early Victorian novels. While the youngest Brontë sister's novel didn't necessarily hit the gothic highs and lows of her elder siblings' works, she did manage to deftly weave a tale that subtly scored against the perception of female educators at the time, as well as the stratifications inherent in upper-class society and the birth pangs of the emerging middle-class. There were no mad wives in the attic; no lightning struck trees and lofty symbolism. In fact, there was very little adventure beyond the grand one of simply pursuing a new path in life. _Agnes Grey_ wasn't truly a thrilling, adventurous tale, and so had marked a departure from literary preferences as a teenager. But now, I longed for that. I was beginning to settle into the contours of this new life — I didn't want to leave anymore, didn't want to even go out for supply runs. After the disappointment of our recent searching efforts, combined with the threat that my drinking posed to myself and those around me, as well as the close call with my friend from the Tombs — I was savouring the relative peace and quiet of our community.

I didn't wear my holster everyday; mostly carried around a small switchblade in my pocket. My days were spent working, planning, informing, and learning, and I relished that normalcy, that purpose. Nurturing friendships and supporting the prison, those were my priorities now. No mad wives in my attic; no lightning struck trees — just work and purpose and hope.

Self-consciously, I took a sip of moonshine. I'd transferred small amounts to a water bottle I kept by my bedside — no one had yet discovered my stash downstairs, not even Brandy. But the nature of my thoughts, though they were private, had me feeling a little embarrassed. After all, I'd spent a lot of my time learning and training how to prove myself capable — indulging in rosy, sentimental wonderings wasn't exactly the intimidating image I'd been working so hard to cultivate.

It was dusk when he came into the cell, and I startled awake with the book on my chest at the sound of his boots and his crossbow hitting the floor. "Hey," I said blearily, struggling to sit up. "How did the run go?"

"Go ask your fucking girlfriend," he spat, ripping off his vest and jacket to toss them to the floor. "She'll tell ya." He slammed a few of our boxes around, kicking at the laundry hamper in the corner. "Stupid bitch."

Rapidly, furiously, my sleepy brain tried to process this change of events. He must have been referring to Brandy, I figured, but what could that mean? I watched as he continued to roughly push items out of his way, spilling the contents of one of my boxes and knocking over my water bottle, spilling about half a cup or so of moonshine on the floor. _Shit_ , I thought, as the strong scent of alcohol rose between us.

Daryl narrowed his eyes, taking in the scene — me, passed out in the early evening after a day of easy work; the potent stink from the bottle; my lethargic movements, not just from sleep. He opened his mouth, presumably to rant, but I beat him to it: "Is she okay? Is everyone okay?" I stood, my bones brittle and stiff from disuse, but my temper flaring to full effect. "Damn it, Daryl, answer me!"

He wouldn't; he was pissed on multiple levels and the best punishment he could think of right now was to keep his mouth shut and glare at me from across the cell. Panic uncoiled in my stomach, a venomous snake poising to strike at my heart. "Fine, asshole." I pushed past him, stormed down the stairs towards Brandy's cell. She wasn't in it.

 _Okay, no big deal. Daryl's such a fucking drama queen that it's probably nothing. She probably just said something to piss him off_. I focused on the slim likelihood of something bad having happened; if she were dead, he wouldn't be mad, I reasoned. He would've been calmer, gentler, more sympathetic. He wasn't perfect, but he also wasn't a completely insensitive jerk. Not anymore.

I hurried down the cellblock until I reached Zach's. He would tell me what was going on; he would be honest and kind and understanding. He would make me laugh about it, make me see how silly I was being for picturing the worst. For picturing her as one of them.

I fluttered a hand at the curtain hanging in the doorway of the cell that Zach and Levi shared, hearing low voices within. Relief spread through me, soothing every fiery, panicked nerve in my body. "Zach? Can I come in for a sec?"

"Yeah."

Inside, Zach gave me a half-hearted smile from the lower bunk, where his lower right leg was being slowly but surely encased in bandages by Dr. S and Hershel. Over in the corner, Levi was nursing a rather vicious bruise on his forehead, several cuts and scrapes down the length of his arms, and a disappointed expression. "What…" I couldn't even finish it; the math was starting to do itself in my brain, and I didn't like it one bit.

Brandy had started fooling around a bit, the two explained — rather reluctantly. The farmhouse had been cleared, and she, Kathryn, and Tim had been assigned to check out the garden at the back of the property. "The rest of us were inside, with Albie standing watch out by the driveway, 'cause it gave him a better view of the whole property. Ow! Damn it." Zach winced as Hershel turned his attention to his limp left wrist with a muttered apology.

"They were supposed to be taking up a few plants," Levi continued as I sank to the floor beside him in dread. "Blueberries, raspberries, that sort of thing. Anyway, Brandy got a little distracted, started telling funny stories — you know what she's like. Kathryn asked her to stop, to wait until they were done, because she was supposed to be keeping watch."

It had happened quickly, in a series of small, stupid mistakes. Tim had pulled up a huge nightcrawler with one of the blueberry plants, and Brandy had let out an almighty, overdramatic scream at the sight. Daryl, Levi, Zach, and Albie had come running for the backyard, thinking there was serious trouble. Instead, they found Brandy doubled over laughing, with Tim and Kathryn angrily saying they didn't want to work with her anymore. They'd endured nearly half an hour of her antics by this point. As Daryl and Albie had tried to come to some sort of resolution, Brandy had stormed off into the woods — unarmed. Zach went after her, and not five minutes later, they'd heard her scream again, over the low, rasping moans of two walkers.

"I honestly didn't see them," Zach said weakly. "I was pulling on her, trying to get her to come back, and they just kind of appeared. One grabbed at my sleeve, got a grip on my arm, but I kicked back and she fell. But the way she fell, it pushed me into, like, a little hollow in the ground, and my ankle just kind of twisted and bent and shit. Then the other one came and I had to pull him down too so I could get them both in the head. By then, Daryl and Levi were there."

I blinked, stunned by secondhand embarrassment and firsthand disappointment. "Are you going to be okay? Both of you?"

Dr. Subramanian reassured me that both men would be fine; Zach was going to need several weeks off from the runs, but his ankle should heal nicely. "As far as I can tell, it's a grade two sprain. Six weeks of healing, tops, but he could be back to normal within three," he explained. "And Levi's contusions and scrapes should be fine within a few days."

I apologized on Brandy's behalf, promising to check in on them in the morning and offering to get them anything — "absolutely anything, guys" — that they needed. Then I headed down to A-block, where I figured she'd be. And I was right; lit by the small glow of a camp-light in the same cell where I'd nearly died, Brandy sat, hugging her knees on the floor, eyes and cheeks shiny with tears.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, as I took her in my arms, echoing the pose we'd left this place in weeks before. "I'm so sorry. I was being so dumb, so stupid, I can't believe I-I risked everything…"

Rubbing small circles onto her back, I murmured as many words of comfort as I could think of. It _had_ been stupid, it had been extremely dumb, but she already knew that. We were all just lucky it hadn't turned out worse. "Hey, it's okay," I whispered. "I just talked to them both; they're fine. They aren't angry at all, Bran. It's okay."

She told me that Daryl had been angry. "Furious, it was scary," she said quietly, hiccuping slightly as her weeping abated. "He was just yelling at me, right in my face. Honestly" — she disentangled herself from my grip, turning to look at me seriously — "I don't know why you like him so much, honey. He's scary. I mean, he's hot and everything, but he's super scary."

I sighed. How to explain this? Back at the farm, after Sophia's death, he'd done the same thing, and I'd felt precisely the same way in response. He'd been infuriated by what he viewed as his failure to find the little girl, and lashed out at anyone who had shown the slightest concern, as though our empathy and compassion just highlighted the fact that he had failed. "He was angry because he cares," I explained. "It's important to him that these supply runs are safe, that everyone gets home in one piece. He was probably being so scary because he himself was afraid."

A lifetime of low self-esteem had wrought something pitiable in Daryl: a constant fear of rejection, of devaluation, an incapability to perceive himself as someone worth care and love. His new position at the prison had brought him out of his shell in a way I had never seen before, but Brandy's scream had threatened that security, that burgeoning faith in his own capabilities. To then find out that the scream was fake, unnecessary, and then add to that the incident with Zach and the walkers — well, it was no wonder Daryl had been so rattled when he'd stomped into our cell this evening. I just hoped this didn't herald some sort of regression.

I helped Brandy back upstairs, brought her a bowl of soup from the kitchen and heavily sugared tea for the shock. She went to bed, biddable as a child, allowing me to tuck her in and whisper some more reassurances to her. "I'll talk to Daryl," I promised. She was worried that she wouldn't be allowed back out on any runs, but personally, I thought as I left her cell, offering a concerned Elliott a brief explanation as we passed on the stairs — really, she shouldn't be allowed back out. Brandy was kind, expressive, fun-loving and enthusiastic, but she wasn't yet used to pulling her own weight, assessing risks. Woodbury had softened her to the threats of this world, just as I'd feared it would. But where people like Karen, Mr Jacobsen, Tim, Julia, and many others had adapted to the worldview we tried to teach them, Brandy was far more content to just laugh at everything, turn it all into an adventure, where everybody had a good time and was home by dinner, safe and sound.

Her high spirits would be better employed here at the prison, I decided, sweeping back the blue curtain to enter my cell. I'd have a talk with her in the morning; maybe we could get her back on fence duty. She could handle herself fine with one walker at a time; it was being out in the wild, so to speak, that was too much for her.

Daryl was in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling, twirling a bolt idly in his hands. He'd straightened up the boxes he had kicked around earlier, wiped up the spill from my bottle. I slipped off my boots and crawled in between my sheets, hoping he wouldn't want to talk right now. The smell of the moonshine was lingering in the air; the sound of the accusation he hadn't been able to verbalize was there too, bright and angry.

We lay there in silence for a while, listening to the congenial buzz of conversation and the clink of dishes down in the cafeteria. A part of me wanted to join in, to be anywhere but this tense space, holding my breath for judgement or apology; but a stronger part stayed, prostrate on the bed, fisting my hands in the blankets and hoping that he would chew me out, hoping that he'd bait me and we could fight, so that I could feel the threefold punishment I now deserved: for Chloe and RJ; for Andrea; and now for pushing Brandy beyond her own limits. I was a terrible person; I deserved the burn.

"You gotta stop," he growled lowly, and though we were in two separate beds, I could feel how it rumbled deep in his chest.

We weren't going to talk about Brandy tonight. And maybe that was for the best; what could we say? She'd made a stupid mistake, she shouldn't go out on any more runs, but everyone was alive and Zach would heal.

No, we weren't going to talk about Brandy tonight, but we sure as hell were going to talk.

"You ever been drunk on a run?"

"No." I exhaled sharply, the mere prospect of such a risk nearly bowling me over completely. "Hungover, yes, but I would never go out drunk."

Was that better, I wondered?

"When that walker got the jump on you, were you drinking down there?"

My shame and my silence told him everything he needed to know, and I listened as he shifted uncomfortably on the bunk above me. I suspected there was an admonishment on his lips, a criticism waiting to burst, or even rage pressing at the seams of his self-control. I waited, eyes filling up with tears I was determined not to shed here in the dark.

"Why?"

I could've pretended to be asleep, I suppose. I could've snuggled down deeper into my blankets and pushed away his voice and his presence, willed myself into a mindless stupor. Or I could've left, gone down to the cafeteria or to sleep in another cell. But what tugged so firmly at me in that moment, making it impossible to move or even really catch my breath, was the simple fact that he was having this conversation. I wasn't his sister or his daughter or his wife — some days had me wondering if I was even his friend. Yet he was asking me this, emotion and concern crowding his voice as he did. He didn't have to; he could've ignored it, refused to let me come on any more runs or piled it onto Hershel's shoulders.

That I now had someone asking this question made me realize how desperate I had been to hear it.

The problem was, though, that I didn't really truly have an answer that I felt I could give him. I drank because it was something to do, something easy and something that made me hurt and feel better all in one. The burn of the whisky down my throat was a cleansing flame, absolving me of guilt and poor decisions; when it pooled inside of me, gold and sweet, it became a balm, a forgiveness from those who could no longer provide that for me. I drank to feel pain and I drank to feel numb; I drank because I was bored and I drank because I was tired; I drank because those moments in between work and planning and building this community, were endless for me. Endlessly torpid, with ample time to ponder things I should've done differently, and mourn for the things I would never do. But how could I tell him that? How could I make him understand that, a man who experienced so much pain, and yet found a way and a strength to keep going?

At first, I thought I'd waited too long to answer, that he would no longer care or that he'd fallen asleep. My voice creaked open, cracking me wide as I told him: "Because I hate myself so much, that the drinking…the alcohol…it's like… like a punishment and a reward all in one."

I hated my ineffectiveness, I told him, and my weakness for bravado. I told him about leaving RJ behind, how could I saved him but chose not to, about Jill and Rhiannon. Chloe's death was on my hands, too, I feared, because I had dragged a near-catatonic young woman out into the wild of a crumbling world, and I made forced her to live in it. And Andrea. I was stained by Andrea's blood because I had let her go with the Governor, and hadn't pushed and pulled her towards us. Because I had valued my own ego, my own safety, my own belonging over her life. I had made the barter, and I had lost.

The moonshine had almost killed me that night, when I'd hesitated to smash a bottle to save my own life. The hair I'd then had him cut from my head hadn't done a damn thing wrong, but it was easier to blame that than to admit or even fully face the simple truth that I had valued a jar of hooch over my own life. I'd evaluated my choices, and decided in a split second that losing my stash would be a worse fate than being torn to pieces for lack of a weapon.

The words tumbled out of me like broken teeth; I couldn't stop them once they had started, and I couldn't cry. I stared at the underside of Daryl's bunk, red-faced and penitent, aware that any progress we'd been making over the past few months was likely destroyed now. I was a drunk — a pitiful little girl too overwrought by reality to face it sober anymore.

On the plus side, poor Brandy was looking a lot more capable in comparison.

"My dad used to drink," he said quietly. "Not because of all that, though — he was just an asshole."

Stunned laughter burbled up inside of me — I had just broken my own heart open and told him everything I was too afraid to tell anyone else in my entire world, and he gave me that. It was so precisely Daryl Dixon that I couldn't do anything other than smile and chuckle in the darkness. After the CDC, when we hit the road to nowhere, we'd spent a night back at the nursing home in Atlanta. Hoping to encounter G and the others, hoping to find a safe place to lay our heads and gather our strength for what lay ahead of us, we'd instead stumbled into the scene of a days' old massacre.

Numb with shock and grief, we had holed up together on the top floor, sharing a few cans of beans and a bottle of water. The kids were scared; I kept thinking of the young girl who had soothed my aching wrists with lotion only a few days before. Every member of the first community we'd encountered since the fall had been shot execution-style, left to die there on the floor of their home, while their killers ransacked the pharmacy and kitchen.

The men had gone out into the hall after something Glenn had said, something about the killers coming back — presumably, Rick and Shane had wanted to admonish him for frightening us all. And when they'd come back, Daryl had handed over the bottle of wine they'd been trading around, and with that little buzz, everything he said was funny, and my giggling soon diffused most of the tension in the tiny room. "Mommy, what's wrong with Riley?" Sophia had asked, fighting a grin as I laughed at Daryl's incredulous expression.

"You're crazy, girl," he said then, and he said it now, there in the dark of our cell, as I laughed around the sobs, masking my misery with mirth.

* * *

It took him eight days to say something else, as though he spent the week ruminating on how best to bring it up again. The morning that Michonne and I intended to set out on our search, I tried to dress without waking him, balancing a cup of coffee on the edge of the toilet, punching my arms through the sleeves of my t-shirt and conducting a silent, vicious fight with my jeans. I had packed my saddle bags the night before, ensuring I had a few spare pieces of clothing, a first aid kit, and _Agnes Grey —_ these I set by the doorway of the cell, quietly as possible.

"You headin' out?"

He was rolled over on his right shoulder, blinking away the sleep from his eyes. By the absence of a blush, I knew he had just woken moments before, not long enough to see me getting dressed. I nodded, reaching for my boots. "Yeah. Mich wanted to leave as early as possible."

"Did you pack a drink?"

I knew he wasn't talking about cola. "No," I said, meeting his gaze coolly. "I haven't had one in about a week."

It wasn't a cure, that was for damn sure. Eleven times during the past week, I'd found myself gasping for a drink, thinking of that box down in A-block. There'd been that dream last Thursday, the one about Chloe — I'd woken in tears and craving absolution. Then Brandy and I had had an argument, when she'd found out she wasn't going to be allowed on any other supply runs for the foreseeable. But I hadn't touched a drop. Instead, I had focused on the sound of Daryl's care that night, his worry and his tension. It didn't bother me that he hadn't yet articulated anything reassuring — just the fact that he cared was enough to make me want to try, to resist for as long as I could. With no AA at my disposal, this would have to do, for now.

He sat up, swung his legs down to hang in the space between our beds, nodding slightly. "Good. That's good."

The morning air still held enough of a bite to warrant grabbing my green canvas jacket, but once I'd pulled that over my shoulders and loaded up my holster, there was really nothing else to delay my leaving. I picked up the saddle bags, gave him a nod. "I'll see you, then. Probably be gone two weeks."

He spoke before I could grab the curtain; he spoke as though moments had passed since we'd last talked about this, not days: "You don't need to feel that way. You protect the group; you do your job. You ain't got no blood on your hands, girl."

I turned; his face was earnest, open with a vulnerability I had seen only a handful of times before. The words moved me, even if they didn't purge me. I had needed to hear them, from him more than anyone. I left him with a smile that I figured wouldn't reach my eyes.

Later, by the time the sun had reached the middle of the sky and Michonne and I stopped to consult the map, I thought about the ghosts that followed my trail — how they had lived only in nightmares and quiet moments back at the quarry, the farm, and the forest. Now, though, that I had time to live and work, they were louder, more insistent — memory was deeper and more potent than anything I could drink, and it was as though the peace I was beginning to sink into had emboldened them, my ghosts, as though it were only in the desert of survival that they could sleep, as though verdant life had stirred them.

* * *

We rode for nine days, battling the entire way. Walkers posed the only interruptions, and those were the moments Michonne and I found ourselves slipping into the fluid synchronicity we had worked so hard to develop during those long winter months. It was purely anticipatory, the way we fought, as though we each possessed some clairvoyant insight into the next three moves of the other. Those altercations were short, efficient, and usually fairly clean. The katana helped us to keep our distance, giving me a chance to grab a few from behind as they were distracted by the silver sweep of her formidable weapon.

The evenings were difficult, as tensions boiled over and discussions blazed into vicious arguments. I would point out the lack of leads, the absence of a genuine, consistent trail; she would accuse me of giving up, of going soft, of not caring about Andrea anymore. _That_ stung, and I usually made sure that that was the end, and that she took first watch. Sleep was a weak reprieve from the ghosts, but it was a rest, and laying my aching bones down to the ground or the dead man's bed I'd borrowed for the night, falling asleep to Honey's low wickers, that was the only comfort I could find in those days. Even Agnes couldn't help.

I was tired of searching, tired of chasing grief. He was dead, I told myself firmly, a little mantra to ease me to sleep. Dead and gone, walking forever, or perhaps put down by somebody else, because something that rotten couldn't survive for long, not even in the world as it existed now. Someone would smell it on him, hear it in the words he wouldn't say, taste it on the air around him — and they would've taken care of this problem for us, so that we could make our way home, settle into our lives back there, with the people who cared about us, the people who missed us.

Michonne called this belief "childish logic," dismissing it as though I were indeed a little kid, coming to her for reassurance. When, one afternoon, I pointed out that we couldn't very well spend the rest of our lives heading out on these types of expeditions, going for weeks at a time, when our skills and presence could be put to better use back at the prison — she just shot me a cold, withering look that sent me back to the day after she pulled me from the well. She'd looked at me with the same shattering mixture of pity and suspicion, as though at any minute I might hug her or stab her, she couldn't be sure.

I think it was that look that sold me on her, honestly.

But now it just frustrated me.

"So what do you want, Riley?" she asked me in response. "What do you want to do?"

Live. Thrive. Work. Find something more than existing on the knife's edge, dancing between the brevity of a lifespan now and the hope for something lasting. Paint the cells. Read more books. Swim. Grow things. Wear something pretty again. Be in love - because that's what _this_ was.

Instead, I just rolled over, fell asleep, pushed away the wanting and the fears, and on the morning of our last day, with the prison just thirty miles away, I told her I wouldn't be going out again. Not ever. Not for the Governor.

* * *

 **Feedback is always appreciated. I hope you're enjoying the story.**


	25. 30 Days Without An Accident

_**Chapter XXV: 30 Days Without An Accident**_

There was nothing cold about quitting. It was hot, all hot, endlessly hot. My veins were a simmering river, and I drowned in nightmares. I told Michonne nothing, losing myself in the sensations of a new kind of loss.

I shattered along the fault lines of my own grief - in some moments, I woke as a child, a little girl again, and chapped lips formed the contours of a plea for my parents before I remembered who I was now. In other moments, I was scrawled upon the walls of the prison, a memory and a ghost and a testament to a life half-lived and oh God, the pain of it.

"Riley, Riley, Riley," was Michonne's refrain in these moments, as she mopped my feverish brow and brought me back to life, and her hands were soft and cool and nothing like a walker's, and she loved me, she loved me, and that was enough, wasn't it? "Riley, Riley, Riley." She pulled me back, back from the undertow. Set me firm on the ground.

* * *

We had been out on a dozen trips, but returning that last time felt like so proper a homecoming, I couldn't keep the beaming smile from my face. Honey sensed my excitement, picking up the pace as we gained the prison road. I'd spent thirty-four days without a drink, twenty-six of them on the road, and though the craving for it still stirred deep in my chest, the sudden rush of joy that I felt at heading home seemed to quieten it somewhat. Just for the moment.

I had been truly foolish to assume that weeks of such dependency could simply be moved on from in a day or two, without consequences. Those twenty-six days in the time following a first rather peaceful week of abstinence proved to be trying. The most ridiculous thing I could've done was go out on that run with Michonne - I knew this to be true because she'd told me so at least a thousand times since my fever had broken. "You idiot," became her standard morning greeting for several days. "You damn idiot."

I apologized and explained, listened as she explained at length the various risks of excess alcohol consumption and dependency. At least Daryl hadn't done this, I thought. At least he had allowed me some privacy, some independence. And when she asked me "why," as he had, I could not form the words. Could not bring myself to return to that plane of vulnerability, when I had cracked myself open and looked too deep inside.

She took my shrug as an answer - really, it didn't take a genius to figure out why I was self-medicating or why I wanted to slip away. One look at the world the way it was made that fairly clear. But as much as I cared about her, I could not tell her why. Not in the same way I had told him. Our time away together had seen me at my most vulnerable; I was ready to be done.

When I'd told her that last morning, just a few hours before, that I no longer wanted to search for the Governor, I'd expected anger of the sort we'd been tossing at each other for the past few weeks. To my surprise, however, she'd simply sighed in response, resigning herself to what she deemed the "inevitability" of my choice. There was no tension to it, but we did spend the rest of our morning in stony silence, allowing Flame and Honey to simply plod forward, commenting idly on the familiar landmarks coming into view.

She whistled now, the usual signal to herald our arrival; it gave someone enough time to get the gates open for us, shortening the amount of time we needed to hang out with the rapidly accumulating number of walkers surrounding the perimeter. Inside, the fields of Rick's gardening endeavours were bright and green with yield, I noticed; the fence crew was hard at work keeping those clingers at bay. "Hey, ladies!" Karen waved from her post several yards down from the main entrance. "Welcome home!"

There was a significant build-up of walkers, more so than I'd seen before. Perhaps fifty or so, insistently pushing on our fence, their moans conflating into one deafening hum. The fence crew itself seemed larger now, as though both shifts of the team were on at once. I couldn't see Brandy, but she'd jumped around quite frequently over the past couple of months, never seeming able to find a place where she could stay for very long — perhaps she'd just had another career change.

Honey startled as we got closer to the walkers, speeding up to match Flame's gallop, and I shifted in my saddle, accommodating the movement. I knew she was nervous, but I had also spotted Rick and Carl racing across the inner field, headed for the gates. They would get there in plenty of time.

The gates opened with an almighty groan, the action triggering the release of two metal doors, scavenged from Woodbury's walls, which swept back curious walkers and impaled a few on the defensive outward-facing pikes, arranged in a wide V shape out from the gate. This enabled Michonne and I to easily advance the further ten feet to the safety of the inner yard — though I kept one hand on the baseball bat I carried with me, tucked into a custom sheath attached to my saddle, just in case they'd become a little bolder in our absence.

A creak from behind signalled the closing of the gates, and the two of us dismounted, as Rick and Carl jogged up from their post to greet us. To my surprise, Rick reached over to envelop me in a brief hug, even as his distracted son sorted his priorities and grabbed hold of the horses' reins. "We're glad to see you," Rick said warmly.

"Glad to see you, too," Michonne replied. She turned to rummage through one of her saddlebags, pulling out a stack of comic books she'd found in one of the houses we had stayed in, about a week ago. Carl's excited gratitude was heartwarming; I still found myself flashing back often to that afternoon in the woods, when he'd gunned down the blue-eyed boy from Woodbury. It was an image I couldn't quite shake, a guilt I couldn't let go of, that the little kid from the quarry had done that, killed someone in cold blood. In response, I'd kept some distance from Carl over the past several months, afraid to look down at him and see something too close to bloodlust in his eyes.

As Michonne handed him the books, though, reminding him that she wanted to read them when he was finished, I saw only a kid — a delighted, contented kid, excited about horses and superheroes. I smiled, reached out for an impulsive, uncharacteristic embrace that had Carl rolling his eyes.

There were more presents in our packs, too. Michonne handed Rick an electric razor we'd found in a previously raided pharmacy near Griffin, on our way back. "Your face is losing the war," she said slyly, gesturing to the ample growth of grey beard that was indeed slowly but surely taking over his face. Personally, I thought it lent something rather impressive to his bearing, but didn't bother telling him so. I was loath to disrupt the rather intriguing looks passing between him and Michonne, of the sort I hadn't noticed all winter. While I had no doubt that Rick was happy to see me again, I wasn't the star of the show right now, not for him.

"You gonna stay a little while?" Rick asked, as Carl began to lead the two horses away towards the paddock; I didn't even register Michonne's response. They'd done well on the long trip, and deserved a rest even more than we did. I had a few things in my saddlebags that could be delivered later. Or maybe even sooner; I turned at the rumble of a motorcycle engine, watched Daryl drive down the sloping road with a smile tugging at his lips at the sight of us, safe and sound.

Self-consciously, I ran a hand through my hair, very thankful that last night, we'd taken a quick swim in the Yellow Jacket and put on some cleaner clothes. It didn't really matter, not in the long run, but nearly a month on the road and my hair had grown shaggy and greasy, my hands were caked with dirt and old blood, and the two pairs of jeans and handful of t-shirts I'd been wearing were probably now only fit for burning. Not that Daryl would care. The water had helped some, though.

The bike ground to a halt in front of us, and Daryl killed the engine. "Well, look who's back," he drawled, his eyes flashing over to me. I smiled slightly, something new stirring inside of me at his friendly, engaged greeting. It was an absolute world away from the tension of weeks' before; this was a new man in front of me, and I liked him. Even more.

"Didn't find him," Michonne said bitterly, our usual report after these trips. Rick and Daryl's faces didn't seem to register any disappointment or dismay; they were so used to our lack of success by now that I really think if we had've brought the Governor back with us the two of them might've keeled over in shock.

Daryl just cleared his throat, idly twisting the handlebars in his grip. He looked good — more defined, as though self-confidence was a wearable accessory. His hair was longer, brushing his eyes more; and he was dressed in his usual leather-jacket and vest combination, but something had changed in his bearing, and suddenly, I had the sense that we'd been gone a lot longer than four weeks. "Glad to see you're both in one piece." He glanced over at me again, giving me that small, fleeting smile that always seemed to feel as though it was just for me, just between us.

I opened my mouth to tell him what I'd brought for him, but Michonne beat me to the punch. "Thinking of looking over near Macon." Rick's expression darkened, and my stomach twisted. We'd already skirted around the city a few months back, and it made sense that the Governor would try to avoid Atlanta as much as possible, but the prospect of Michonne heading out on her own into the woods, with no one to watch her back or help if she got hurt or lost — if she died on the way to Macon, it would be my fault. "It's worth a shot," she continued, as Rick looked away, down at the fields, visibly upset. I'd had no idea _he_ was so opposed to our travels, or maybe it was just that we'd been gone so long this time?

"Seventy miles of walkers?" Daryl interjected. "You might run into a few unneighbourly types. Is it?"

He was right. Even though we'd done fairly well so far, making it down to the border and back safe and sound, there was no indication that she would be so lucky in the future, especially travelling along. An extra set of eyes went a long way in the world now; and my gun skills, while nowhere near perfect, provided her with the back up or cover fire she may need in extreme situations. Especially if, as Daryl had pointed out, we ran into people who posed a threat.

Michonne's mouth tightened into a terse line. "You sound like Riley." Her eyes met mine, and I tried to blink an apology in her direction. Because it was that easy, right? After so many months together, just the two of us, I'd thought we had developed something of a subliminal language, where just a look or a tilt of the head could say so much more than words. I hoped she did understand that my desire to stay home in future had nothing to do with a lack of love or courage, but everything to do with them both. As though she heard me, I received one small nod in return.

"I'm gonna go check out the Big Spot," Daryl continued after an awkward beat. "The one I was talking about, just seeing."

Rick looked down at his boots, scuffing them slightly in the dirt. "Yeah, I gotta go and check out the snares," he replied. "I don't want to lose whatever we catch to the walkers." Daryl had been offering, it seemed, inviting him along; in the early days of the prison, Rick had gone out quite a bit with Daryl and some of our supply runs, even bringing back new people himself. Jamie, for instance; Dr. Subramanian. But as the months had worn on, I now realized, he had gone out less and less.

"I'll go," Michonne offered.

"You just got here!" Carl pointed out, upset. Michonne reassured him that she would be back again soon, but as she made her way towards the SUV parked just behind Daryl, I shifted on my feet indecisively, uncertain as to whether or not I should volunteer as well. I was tired, achy from the saddle and strained from the weeks of arguing and travelling. All I really wanted was a shower and my bunk, but Daryl cocked a glance my way and asked me if I wanted to come along, too. That was all it took. That was always all it would take, for me to find energy and purpose and a deep, deep desire to belong to someone, anyone, even if it just meant clinging to his waist on the back of the motorcycle, going out in search of toilet paper and aspirin.

The drive was actually quite enjoyable — after all those days on horseback, having to navigate and keep an ear cocked for danger, it was relaxing to simply have to keep a grip on Daryl and watch as the green foliage lining the side of the road just swept by. "I brought you back some jeans," I said loudly, trying to be heard over the rumble of the engine. "Pre-ripped."

"Thanks," he replied, leaning into a corner as we turned down towards the nearest town. "D'you run into any trouble on the road?"

Nothing too major. We'd seen a small herd down near Barnesville, and had taken the time to trim them down from the edges before driving the remaining off the edge of a bridge into a rushing river. After that, it had been only a handful of walkers at a time, and no signs of any other groups. "And no sign of him," I finished, adjusting my stiff knees on either side of him. "I'm not going back out again."

He jerked slightly forward in my grip, but really, he can't have been too shocked. "Really?" he asked. "Michonne was already talking about Macon."

"I know," I sighed, leaning my chin forward on his shoulder so that he could hear me more clearly. "But we've been having the same argument for almost eight months now, with no results and no trail. It went cold a long time ago, you said so yourself. I told her this morning I wasn't going out again, not to look for a ghost." I was going to spend the next two weeks or so trying to convince Michonne not to go back out again either, I continued. "There's nothing out there. And I don't want her going on her own."

He nodded in agreement, but didn't say anything else for the short duration of the ride. I was familiar with the chain of stores we were aiming for — Chloe and I had spent a lot of time and money at various Big Spot locations throughout Atlanta. They were affordable family department stores, offering a wide range of items from cheap clothing to groceries to pharmacy supplies. It was a bit further out from some of our other runs over the past several months, but we'd been largely focusing on the local strip mall as well as the houses in nearby developments. Bigger stores had usually already been ransacked and emptied, often leaving doors wide open for walkers to head in, and so we tended to avoid them. To be heading out today, on the twenty-five minute drive, Daryl and Sasha (who was driving the SUV behind us) must be pretty confident.

When we finally pulled up to it, I found that the store looked like all of the other Big Spots I'd ever been to — boxy, concrete, plain, nondescript. Take off the sign and it could've been just about anything else. What _was_ unique about this one, however, was the Army camp that had been set up in its main parking lot. Sturdy chainlink fences ran around the perimeter, and within, we could see a few khaki tents, all surrounded by overturned tables, chairs, and other detritus. Surprisingly, I could hear the faint lilt of some sort of classical music, playing from somewhere. Daryl parked the bike quite close to the edge of the fence, allowing me to slide off first.

A man emerged from the SUV behind me, a broad smile creasing his face as he stretched out a hand to shake mine. "Hi there, I'm Bob," he said warmly. "You must be Riley."

"Hey," I replied, shaking his hand. "Yeah, nice to meet you." Bob Stookey was the newest resident of the West Georgia Correctional Facility, he explained as the others exited the vehicles and armed themselves. I had my small collection of knives attached to my thigh holster, as well as my newly acquired .38 tucked into my back pocket. Bob seemed to be armed with a canvas backpack and a can-do attitude.

Daryl had found Bob on the road just about a week ago. "I'd been alone for a little while," he continued, as together we approached the fence. "And your man there helped me out big time. I'm really grateful."

"Ain't," Daryl interjected, raising the crossbow and joining us at the edge of the fence.

Bob looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Ain't her man."

I'd long since learned and accepted the fact that when Daryl "rejected" me in those ways — denying that he was my boyfriend or husband; refusing to allow for me to be called his girl, and so on — those moments weren't intended to hurt or embarrass me. Daryl was a sensitive person; his emotions ran close to the surface, and I think it mattered to him that people not think he and I were anything more than cellmates and friends. It may have had a lot to do with the fact that I was younger than him, or that he just resisted the idea of being categorized in such a way. It wasn't the same as him lashing out — I'd felt that before. Daryl was simply not a fan of being boxed in or backed into a corner in any way. Being labelled was a threat to him, I think.

So I just shrugged it off, smiled at Bob and rolled my eyes at Daryl, tried to pretend there hadn't been a faint blush to my cheeks at the sound of "your man."

"Army came in and put these fences up," Daryl continued as though the sidetrack had never happened. Make it a place for the people to go. Last week, when we spotted this place, there was a bunch of walkers behind this chainlink keeping people out, like a bunch of guard dogs."

Michonne, Tyreese, Glenn, Sasha, and Zach had joined us by this time, everyone kitted up and ready to go. "So they all just left?" Bob asked, incredulous. The parking lot was completely empty of walkers — unusual for a space this open and large. It should've still been crawling with them, especially with the rather large hole in the fencing, just to Daryl's right, that would have provided easy entrance.

"Give a listen," Sasha said. The cresting waves of music were emanating from somewhere nearby, but I couldn't pinpoint the exact source. I tried to think of the last time I'd actually listened to music; Beth was always singing _a Capella_ throughout the prison, but it hadn't been since college, since Chloe, that I'd heard something like this.

"You drew 'em out," Michonne said, impressed.

Sasha explained that they had placed a boombox somewhere in the vicinity just about three days ago. Walkers tend to naturally follow any noise, just because it could be indication of some food wandering nearby. "Hooked it up to two car batteries," Glenn added.

It was an impressive plan; now we only had to navigate the terrain of the parking lot with a drastically decreased level of risk, and hope for the best when we actually entered the store. "All right," Daryl said, swinging his bow down from his shoulder and crouching slightly to make his way through the gap in the fence. "Let's make a sweep. Make sure it's safe. Grab what you can; we'll come back tomorrow with more people."

The rest of us filed in through behind him; it was nice to see Daryl taking on a sense of leadership. My last supply run with him and his group had been a relatively long time ago, and so I hadn't yet gotten a sense of who had started to become with this role. Perhaps this, in combination with his job on the prison council, had brought out something new in him, something that couldn't emerge in the dark of Merle's shadow.

As we passed by the remnants of what had once likely been a stable and safe place to be, I tried to scan for anything useful. The large canvas tents might actually be promising, if we could find even just one that was free of blood and gore. Other than that, though, I couldn't really spot anything that would be worth grabbing. Most items had been ripped apart, strewn across the pavement, or likely looted by escapees. I followed Michonne through what had once been a medical tent, finding only papers and camp beds overturned on the ground — no medications or extra bandages of any sort. The beds themselves might be worth coming back for tomorrow, but there didn't seem to be anything else worth stopping for out there in the parking lot. Hopefully the inside of the store would bode a little brighter.

"Come on," Daryl said finally, leading the way to the front doors of the Big Spot. We stepped around desiccated corpses, dead of head wounds and drying under the hot sun. Briefly, I wondered how long the camp had survived since the fall; if they'd been still operating as we'd made the prison our home, fought with the Governor. Daryl leaned against the low ledge of the main window, slamming his elbow into the glass a couple of times. "Just give it a second."

Michonne and I peered idly into the glass a little further down the building, but they were far too dusty to see anything within. With a grin at both of us, Zach leaned against the brick wall and then turned to Daryl. "Okay, I think I got it," he said, adjusting his rifle in his hands and shifting on his feet slightly.

"Got what?" Michonne asked as we rounded the corner to join in, curious. Zach moved to perch on the ledge too, stretching out with a mischievous expression. He explained that he'd been trying to guess what Daryl had done before the turn, career-wise.

"He's been trying to guess for, like, six weeks," Daryl countered, catching my eye. I was trying desperately to hold in a laugh, and he knew it.

"Yeah, I'm pacing myself," Zach retorted. "One shot a day."

I'd never really actively wondered about what Daryl had done before the fall — or anyone, for that matter. We were who we were in the face of the end, and it seemed more important to have a fulsome awareness of who the person was in front of you, where they were headed, and not where they had come from. Sometimes, our past lives had too much bearing on our new ones: Andrea had demonstrated this most clearly, when she'd tried to apply civil rights and mediation to a dog-eat-dog world. That was to her detriment. Others, like Rick, had managed to adapt some of their skills and values to suit our new reality, seeing much more success. But whether somebody had worked in an office or in a store; bounced from job to job or telecommuted, it wasn't really important anymore, not to me at least.

But this conversation was heading in an intriguing direction.

Daryl chewed his lip for a moment, weighing the prospect of waiting in awkward silence, or indulging in something lighthearted, and in an extreme display of personal growth, he chose the latter: "All right, shoot."

"Well," Zach heaved a sigh. "The way you are at the prison, you being on the council, you're able to track, you're helping people, but you're still being kind of, uh… _surly_." A grin broke across my face at his word choice; Michonne inclined her head appreciatively. Daryl's expression, however, hadn't changed: he was simply appraising Zach, surveying the area intermittently, betraying absolutely nothing.

"Big swing here," Zach continued. "Homicide cop."

Michonne's laughter burst like a dam, and I had to bite my lip against my own rush of amusement. Zach looked pleased with himself, but Detective Dixon seemed affronted. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," she smiled. "Makes perfect sense."

Actually, it kind of did, considering the man in front of us now. Everything Zach had pointed out suited the notion of an irascible, hard-bitten investigator who had seen far too much during his years on the force: the instinct to help with none of the people-skills. But I couldn't reconcile that with a sleeveless hunter bursting from the forest, holding a knife against two police officers. No, that wasn't Daryl.

He must've liked it though, because he seemed determined to run with it. "Actually," he shot back, "the man's right. Undercover." He nodded at a delighted Zach.

"Come on, really?"

"Yep." Daryl glanced up to meet my eyes, and to my undying surprise, there was an impish gleam in his. I smiled at Zach's rapt, incredulous expression, as Daryl continued: "I don't like to talk about it 'cause it was a lot of heavy shit, you know?"

"Dude," Zach pressed again, "come on, really?" Daryl shot him a look that plainly said he'd been shitting us, and cleared his throat. "Okay, I'll just keep guessing, I guess."

"Yeah," Daryl growled. "You keep doing that." Behind him, a snarling walker hurled itself against the glass.

"We gonna do this, Detective?" Michonne asked, as the rest of us sprung into action, heading for the main entrance of the store.

"Let's do it," Daryl agreed, leading us around to the doors, tucked away from the front window. Tyreese handed him a crowbar, and together, they wrenched open the glass doors. Our two friends at the window — one a civilian, the other a soldier — eagerly rushed to greet us, earning themselves a hammer and knife in the head respectively. I reached to help Bob pull out the heavier one, the soldier, while Tyreese took care of the other.

Glenn and Sasha flanked the doors, heavily armed with submachine guns and tense grimaces. I bounced slightly on the balls of my feet as she began dispensing instructions to this relatively small group. How much would we really be able to carry, I wondered? Even with another group coming out tomorrow — it sucked leaving stuff behind. _I_ normally didn't like doing that. But then again, I wasn't in charge here. I was just tagging along. "All right," Sasha was saying. "We go in, stay in formation for the sweep. After that, you all know what you're supposed to be looking for. Any questions?"

"Was there ever a time when you _weren't_ the boss of me?" Tyreese asked, still breathing heavily from the effort of hauling the bodies outside.

His younger sister — a foot and a half shorter than his massive football-player physique — just flashed him a grin. "You had a few years before I was born," she said.

Smiling, I let them go in ahead of me. I didn't have a copy of the List, and really, I'd been away from the prison for so long that I wasn't even sure what kind of supplies we would need. To this end, I intended to stick close by some of the others and just copy whatever they were selecting. I paused, noticing that Bob had hung back, stepping down off the sidewalk behind me to examine a pair of bloodied legs, still grotesquely attached to their pelvis, laying there on the pavement. I hadn't noticed it when we'd first come in.

"Maybe one of them couldn't finish?" I suggested after gagging slightly at the sight. But even I knew that was bullshit. Walkers didn't stop eating once they'd started. Bob turned, shook his head. We didn't have time to wonder.

This group obviously worked well together — we managed to sweep through the aisles silently and quickly, encountering no other walkers and scores of relatively untouched shelves. It seemed that perhaps the encampment outside hadn't had a chance to loot, or that the soldiers had discouraged it. Some groups had striven to hold on to the rule of law a lot longer than others.

Daryl and I, predictably, ended up stalking the aisles together. He'd been assigned the pharmacy section, and a quick glance down at the hastily scrawled list — miles away from my painstakingly-crafted handwritten spreadsheets — plainly told me why he'd asked: there were dozens of requests there for feminine hygiene products. It stood to reason that an unmarried man raised primarily by Merle Dixon would have some difficulty discerning the fine difference between pads and tampons, particularly when presented with the vast array before us. He pushed the shopping cart and balanced a flashlight as I dug through the pink and purple boxes and packages, unabashedly tumbling them into the basket. After nearly eight months of rooming with a woman, he still flushed at the mere sight of the labels. "Oh, grow up, Dixon," I smirked. "Anyone would think you were embarrassed by the 'lady products.'"

Crossbow nestled in the child's seat, he shoved the cart further down the aisle, down towards a selection of toothpastes and brushes. I hurried to match his stride, one hand on the side of the basket, aware that this was one of the most normal actions we'd experienced together — walking through a department store, side-by-side, making conversation. Despite the fact that the space was dark, dank, and reeking of the dead bodies that had been wandering around for God knows how long — really, all we were missing was a bit of Muzak and an argument about coupons.

Daryl cleared his throat, grabbing a handful of toothbrushes. "Just, uh, didn't want to get the wrong things," he replied, his face reddening even more, if that were possible.

He was genuine, I realized guiltily, watching as he rummaged through the shelves to retrieve a few tubes of children's toothpaste, in gentler flavours like bubblegum and watermelon. My knee-jerk response had been rather sexist in its presumptuousness, and that was unfair. I often assuaged my own ego by recalling how I had been among one of the first to truly trust and respect Daryl within our group, back when he was still impulsive and angry; but the truth was, I still underestimated him far too quickly and frequently. Here he was, taking charge of this supply run, taking care of his people, and I was so eager for an opportunity to tease (a building block, I hoped, to some good old fashioned flirting) that I was willing to throw his maturity and effort right under the bus.

I apologized softly; he acknowledged with a grunt, and then finished clearing the dental care shelf. The joy I felt at being home — coupled with the surprising sheer relief of knowing I had finally, officially given up on finding the Governor and could more fully embrace life at the prison — that was heady, like a fine whisky, and it was making me more than a little tipsy, causing things better left unsaid to be said, just for the briefest shot at a laugh or something more. Speaking of which…

"I haven't had a drink since that night." We rounded the side of another aisle, this time piling in a few bottles of vitamins and supplements. "Haven't even really wanted one." _That_ was a lie, but I allowed myself the indulgence. Just on the slim shot of making him happy.

Daryl's face remained impassive, though he took to studying the label of a jar of fish oil capsules quite intensely. Perhaps I had offended him - finally gone too far - God, this silence was worse than when he full-on yelled at me if he was angry - damn it, where was the vitamin C? "That's good, girl — that's great."

A smile dawned on my face, a proud beam. I knew there was a liquor section in here, but I wouldn't be heading towards it. That dry month had proven to me that my nightmares, if I had them, were my lot and I would just have to deal with them. Trying to drown those ghosts and my guilt would only serve to mire me even more deeply in that misery, that aching chasm of self-pity and grief I simply clawed at the high walls of. RJ the Destroyer was dead; Chloe was dead; Andrea was dead. I had played my part in their loss, each and every one of them, but what was done was done. I was still here, and there were plenty of people worth dying for still around me. The sweet embrace of drunken ignorance was only a brief respite from the pain I figured I deserved to feel, for now; the pain I had hope would soon calcify, or at least be shifted to the side, pushed away by a brighter cause.

Daryl looked over, clocked the smile and opened his mouth to add something, but never got the chance, suffering an untimely interruption in the form of a loud, liquid shattering of glass, a man's bellow of pain, and the raging creak of a tall shelf falling to the floor.

Wordlessly, I handed him the flashlight I'd been twirling in my fingers, helping him shift the bow from the cart. Daryl folded himself into a low crouch, dashing around the end of the pharmacy aisle and heading towards the far left side of the store, over towards the grocery section to which Bob Stookey had been assigned. I worried at my lip for a moment, listening for further cries or signals of distress; as far as we could tell, we'd already cleared the store. The worst thing that could've happened was that a shelf gave way or someone bumped into it. I just hoped no one had gotten injured. "Everyone's alright!" Zach's voice cut through a tense silence. "We're over in wine and beer!"

I swept a hand through the remaining shelf, figuring that all vitamins were important and we shouldn't be leaving anything from the pharmacy section behind anyhow. Voices rose from the direction Daryl had headed in, the left side of the store, as I'd suspected. I started pushing the cart over, though it was actually fairly weighed down by this point, stopping only to add a few boxes of tissues to my stash — they'd been on sale on the aisle end, just forty cents. But for me, free.

To be honest here, I'm not good at transitions. Things happen so suddenly in this world that the word "suddenly" can suddenly seem meaningless. Processing the development and sequence of earth-shattering events is impossible in the heat of the moment, when you have to simply recalculate your entire world view in the space of a few seconds. Let me put it this way, as simply as I can: one minute, I was gloating over the prize of a few boxes of tissues; the next, I was gazing, nauseated, at the walker dangling in the sunlight, suspended like the world's most disgusting piñata from the broken ceiling of the Big Spot.

I left the cart, the copper tang of panic bursting on my tongue as I raced down the aisle, breaking out into what had once likely been a very tidy liquor section, but which was now strewn with broken bottles and stained with wasted wine. Such a shame. "Yeah, uh, we should probably go now," Glenn stammered, but we were all transfixed by the grotesquerie before us, swinging slightly with the force of its punctuated descent.

"Bob's still stuck," Daryl interjected, reaching down to the fallen shelf. "Get 'em out of there." Our newest addition was indeed curled painfully halfway underneath the fallen shelf. Damn it.

More walkers were plunging through the ceiling now — two, then three, then four, then we couldn't afford to dither any longer. One fell to the floor with a wet thump, just a foot away from me; others stranded themselves on high displays; shattered on the linoleum like the wine bottles, red reaching far and wide. Sasha pulled me back with her, towards the entrance, while I fumbled with the Glock in my jeans, embarrassed and angry that I hadn't pulled it out sooner, at Bob's first cry. "Oh, shit, shit, shit." My hands were slippery and unsure on the gun; out on the road, I'd relied far more frequently on my baseball bat, there safe on Honey's back. I'd nearly forgotten what it was like to be caught unawares, thrust into the hot, putrid chaos of a swarm of walkers.

Every new walker bought us more light, as the roof and ceiling of the store gave way. Briefly, I wondered why it was giving out — perhaps poor drainage? We'd had a fairly rainy winter. If the eavestroughs had been clogged, could a build up of water on the roof develop that level of fragility? But then, if that were even true, how did those people get up there in the first place?

"Hey!" Bob shrieked, and my heart clenched in guilt. Retreat was not an option, not anymore. I pushed away from Sasha's grip, as though I were someone worth protecting, and fired off a shot straight through the skull of an approaching walker, whose hands were reaching a little too close to poor Bob for my liking. Happily, the shot was clean, jetting right through the first skull and in through a second, directly behind.

 _Thank you, Shane_ , I thought irreverently. While I did have a small natural propensity for aiming, it was to him I owed this accuracy. Back at the farm, he'd run me pretty hard through several drills and sessions of target practice. Certainly, he'd been a murderous fucking asshole, but he was a good teacher.

A rapid volley of gunfire sounded from behind — Sasha was in the game. I picked off another three, and then knocked a sixth behind the knees, bringing her flat to her face. My boots made quick work of her after that. Up ahead, almost down around the aisle end, Tyreese was struggling with a few of his own. I picked up a half-broken bottle and sprinted to join him, ramming the glass shards through temple of the one closest to me, giving him an opportunity to drive his hammer between the eyes of a female who was getting a little too familiar.

The noise was deafening, crushing, and raw — gunfire and fleshy squelches and Bob's persistent pleas for help. Tyreese and I contended with a new batch of the dead, making their way around the corner; out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a display of tennis rackets. Thanking God for the eclectic organization habits of department stores, I grabbed one, tossed another to Tyreese, and in an additional smooth movement, I tucked my gun into the back of my jeans. Those bullets should be reserved for long-range altercations, not in shit like this, when hand-to-hand would work just fine.

Against your typical walkers, doing my best impression of Billie Jean King probably wouldn't have done much — but these ones seemed soft, weaker, as though they'd never fed, or been exposed to the elements for far too long. They were almost soaked or something. In unison, Tyreese and I served up a combination of strong right hooks and stomps to clear up the mess in aisle four. "Fuck," I swore as we paused long enough for a breather. "We've got to get out of here."

We couldn't leave without Bob, though. I tried to orient myself — already, we'd raced through a warren of aisles. But there in the centre of the store, Daryl had instinctively sought higher ground, standing on top of a large display of twofers to pick off the encroaching horde more accurately. Above him, the afternoon light broke free, shadowed only by the metallic underbelly of some great hulking form I couldn't yet make out. I used that to navigate my way back to the liquor section, stopping to shoot through three more on the way.

A loud creak from overhead made me look up again, to see that whatever it was perched up there on the roof was about to join us down below. Right on top of Daryl, in fact. "Go, Daryl!" Glenn hollered, pushing back from the section.

"Shit! Move it!" I screamed, watching as he hopped down from the boxes. Where was Bob? Where was Bob? What the hell was going on?

"Get Bob!"

I wheeled around at the sound of Zach's voice, trying desperately to reorient myself as panic and bravado collided in an unhelpful mix, rocketing through my veins like a drug. My limbs suddenly seemed to not belong to me anymore — I stepped hesitantly right, then left, reaching out uncertain hands, all in search of a man trapped beneath a shelf. _Shit, shit, shit_.

Zach fired off a few rounds, but my eyes followed Daryl, who had reached down, just a few feet to my right, to drag away a walker from Bob's frozen, fearful body. He stomped down hard on its skull as I rushed past. "I'm sorry," I mumbled, grabbing Bob by his armpits. "Sorry, Bob." I pulled, but he was wedged in firmly. Clammy hands that still didn't quite seem like mine fumbled at the edge of the shelf as I stood. Zach's joined mine, and together we managed to lift the structure enough that Bob, with Daryl's help, could crawl out from underneath.

I kept one hand on his shoulder; he leaned half his weight into me as we ran for the door, best he could manage. _Okay, okay, we're fine, it's going to be fine_ , I chanted, an internal mantra that I should've known would do jack-shit. Zach's scream of pain sliced through us all, quick and sure as a sword, and I turned to dumbly watch him being pulled by the leg down back beneath the wine shelf. A walker had him by the leg, I realized. He'd been bit. Was being bit, again and again.

Someone called his name, I couldn't be sure who — a fog of preemptive grief will do that to you. Teeth dove into his neck in a splash of blood I didn't want to see, couldn't process, and I gripped my fingers hard into Bob's shoulder, some sort of comfort in this moment. There was nothing we could do now, nothing any of us could do. The ceiling was about to give way completely; the store was lost.

Zach was lost.

* * *

Time passed in slow, painful, out of sequence increments. Dimly, I was aware of clutching at Daryl's jacket as we drove back; the green, vibrant forest pressing on us from the sides; the notes of Glenn's stunned, wracked breathing as he piled into the SUV; the smell of blood and death, crawling its way within me as we rushed from the store; Bob's agonized limping; the creak of the gates as we entered the prison yard; the thick metallic smoke of the helicopter as it crashed behind us; the bitter taste of dashed hopes.

I curled into myself on the bottom bunk, not bothering to go see anyone, not wanting to be welcomed back. My clothes were filthy, my body dusty, but my mind was racing now, chasing absurd thoughts, maybes, what-ifs, all ending in the same inevitable misery: Zach was dead. Funny, charming, posturing Zach — a kid just a few years younger than me, a kid who had grown so, so much in a short space of time. His hands had nearly overlapped with mine as we'd lifted the shelf together. Perhaps if I'd pulled him along, tugged him harder, encouraged him to move faster — perhaps he wouldn't be dead now.

Brandy came to see me, but I pretended to be asleep. I didn't want to tell anyone about Zach; selfishly, I left that to Daryl and the others. Sleep wouldn't come, though — I pressed my eyelids closed and tried fruitlessly to quash those thoughts, the sounds from this afternoon, the pain of coming so close to something like contentment, only to watch it disintegrate under the pressure of our new reality. Lives were lost in seconds. Whole people extinguished and forgotten.

"You awake?"

I sat up, shifting my legs so he had room. Daryl let the curtain fall back behind him, removing the crossbow and joining me, heavily, on the bed as I clicked on our camp-light. "Did you tell Beth?" My voice sounded small and young, there in the dark between us, and my hands twitched awkwardly in my lap. I wanted to hold his, but felt instinctively that that would spook him.

He nodded, swallowing, reliving the moment, his own hands dangling between his knees. I'd watched Beth and Zach say their sweet, endearing goodbyes a thousand times; happened upon them kissing around corners more often than I would've liked. Their doe-eyed glances across the cafeteria had been something of a bright spot in a bleak world, a reminder that we still possessed the capacity for love and affection and better things blooming in our humanity beyond simply the need to survive. I'd hoped that it was Daryl who had told Beth — the two people who had, arguably, cared about Zach the most in our community.

"She didn't cry," he said, his voice gravelly and tired. It bothered him, but I understood. It was part of the reason I had started drinking, I think — anything to fill me up after a loss rather than let it drain me. I couldn't cry over Zach either, even though his loss struck through me again and again, so many knives. The pain was there; the absence and the loss; the grief and the anger; but no tears. If you cried every time, you'd dry up much too quickly. But I didn't tell him that. A teenaged boy died today, and he was Daryl's friend.

I shifted, pressing my bare feet to the cool concrete below, leaning into his side. My head rested neatly on his shoulder, and he didn't even flinch at the contact; perhaps we both needed it. "She's barely eighteen, and this is the second boyfriend she's lost. Not broken up with, not moved away from — they've died, bloody and horribly." I took a shuddering breath, picturing the night ahead of Beth. "Maybe she's just…tired of it. Tired of losing people."

We all were. In the months since those early battles with Woodbury and the Governor, we hadn't lost many people. Actually, I realized with a start, Zach's death marked the first death since those of Andrea and Merle. Before that, it had been T-Dog, Axel, and Oscar; Lori and Shane; Dale and Jacqui; Amy and Jim. Now, here in the quiet of this collective mourning, we were forced to face an old lesson we hadn't yet learned well enough. "I'm sorry," I whispered, and his hand slid across my knee, squeezing it briefly, ever so slightly. We stayed in that posture for nearly two minutes, a lifetime really, when you took into consideration his usual reticence, particularly concerning physical contact with anyone besides Carol.

Our clothes were dirty, dusty, encrusted with dried sweat, and yet we just crawled beneath sheets we could change tomorrow. It seemed implausible that he was gone. Implausible that we would wake to a morning without him and Beth flirting over their oatmeal, dodging Hershel to make out in dark corners. I gazed up at the bottom of Daryl's bunk and for the first time, considered what it would be like if _he_ had been bitten and left behind at the store, dying alone beneath the crush of the falling helicopter. If it were Beth thinking about _me_ in my cell — but would it even occur to her to do so? There was nothing official, substantial, identifiable happening between Daryl and I, nothing that would even make anyone say anything beyond, "That Riley's alone in her cell now." People would pity Carol more; they had long ago lost interest in insinuating something romantic between the two of us.

Pain struck through me, deep in the heart of me, at the thought of that bed above me being empty. Of what my life would be like without him in it. Whatever the hell was between us, whether it was merely an awkward affection, a firm but tempestuous friendship, or the promise of something more, I couldn't be sure and really couldn't care. If we never kissed or slept together, that was fine; we didn't need that. Just the surety of belonging to someone, of knowing that someone cared, would cry if I died; knowing that I would cry if he died, of knowing that I cared, that surety of him belonging to me in a way that no one else possessed him — that was more than enough.

A tear rolled down my cheek in the dark, and I brushed it away. Whatever we had, it was unique. I was different to him than Carol — not more important, but, I hoped, not less either. His smile as we'd made our way up the driveway, that mattered. It hadn't been as sappy or loving as Zach's to Beth, but that was okay. He was glad I was alive, and in terms of simple math, that meant he would miss me if I was gone.

That was all any of us wanted, really — to be missed.

* * *

 _Hope you're enjoying the story :) Reviews and feedback are always appreciated._


	26. Infected

_**Chapter XXVI: Infected**_

I stirred into consciousness, grief lukewarm on my tongue. For a moment, I lay there confused — surprised not to hear Honey and Flame, not to feel the caress of a morning breeze ghosting across my skin. Instead, I was staring up at the underside of Daryl's bunk, and he was breathing deeply above me.

And Zach was still dead.

The small clock that I'd brought back a few trips ago told me it was just past six. My sleep had been restless, interrupted by strange noises and stranger dreams, and my whole body was aching enough to remain wrapped in my sheets and return to unconsciousness, if not for the niggling awareness that I should get up and do something today to re-establish myself here at the prison, as well as working to persuade Michonne to remain in future. Zach's accident yesterday had simply convinced me even more thoroughly that we ought to stay here, help the group, rather than ride off into the blue every few weeks in search of someone best left gone.

"Good morning, lady."

Brandy met me in the hot steam of the showers with a grin and an unabashed hug, wrapping her arms around me, not even bothering to avoid dislodging my towel. "I came by to see you last night," she explained, tucking a sodden strand of hair behind my ear, "but you were out like a light. How are you?"

I changed into a fresh pair of leggings and a purple t-shirt I rarely got the chance to wear, it being even too bright for the woods. We sat cross-legged on the floor near the benches, finishing off the orange juice she'd brought with her. Zach's death hung between us, much as it did everyone in the prison, I'm sure, and so we skirted around it out of respect and care and a mutual reluctance to give it weight and reality on this calm, peaceful morning. For now, we could carry each other in this liminal space, suspended between a half-truth and a balm of a lie. I told her about the road, that I wasn't going out again; she told me that she and Elliott had cooled things off, that she'd grown tired of his obsessive protectiveness. She wanted a normal relationship, or at least as close to normal as we could get here.

I let her chatter surround me, warmer and more buoying than even her embrace had been. She flicked a finger through my soaked, lengthening bangs, and wordlessly retrieved a pair of scissors from a nearby bin of communal supplies. She tended to give me the same style she wore — short and spiky, hard to grab and grasp. We matched, brunette and blonde, but beneath all that, her blue eyes were bright and flashing, the planes of her face elegant and memorable. In contrast, I was scarred and scraped; dirty no matter how much I washed; deep circles carved out under my eyes. Once, I'd cared quite a bit for my own appearance, waking early to rub creams and colour into my skin — a swipe of lip gloss, a brush of shadow. Chloe and I had watched online makeup tutorials compulsively, trying to figure out how to bring out our eyes, contour the angles, make ourselves look thinner or older or more interesting.

Now, I could (and, indeed did) go for days without showering, function and survival weighing more than luxury. The only thoughts I gave to my hair were the brief nightmares about what would've happened to me down in A-block if Julia hadn't come back to check on me. It wasn't better, necessarily — I often missed the relaxation of that self-care: how the sweet scent of a drugstore moisturizer could make every tense muscle in my body ease; how brushing my hair and the cool sizzle of a face mask could take away the stress of school and relationships and the increasingly tense long-distance interactions with my mother, just for a little while.

Self-care had an entirely new definition these days: regular workouts were to keep my muscles fit and engaged, not because I wanted to feel better about my own body but because it was highly likely I would need to run for my life at least three times that week; instead of practicing winged eyeliner or latte designs, I trained with my knife and occasionally Michonne's katana.

After she'd finished, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror again. My skin wasn't smooth anymore. The ghost of my old road rash still flared up in certain lights, and my stare looked cagey, guarded. I did like the look of my arms, though — somehow, despite my high-sodium diet, complete with unintentional intermittent fasting, I'd finally managed to develop a taut little curve of muscle tone to them. My gym membership back in Atlanta hadn't even been able to accomplish that. I mentioned this observation to Brandy, who just replied with a wry smile. "You're pulling off them pants, too, lovely."

Though birthdays didn't mean much anymore, I was nearing twenty-three now, I realized as I left a sleepy Brandy in her cell and headed back to my own. I would've been graduating in a few weeks, ready to enter the job market, polish up my portfolio, suffer the indignity of an unpaid internship in some southern newspaper office. Or maybe I would've gone back north, lived with my parents for a while; started writing for some hip, rebellious online journal made for people my own age.

Would I have ever met any of _these_ people? My people? Would I have gotten pulled over in King County by Rick or Shane, stern expressions in response to my too-fast driving? Would I have hiked past on a trail concealing Daryl at its edges? Would I have had a class with Zach, Beth, or Maggie? Would I have ordered a pizza delivered by Glenn? Would I have ever suffered this ragged depth of loss, at so young an age?

I wanted to sleep for decades, wake up like Sleeping Beauty, but of my own volition, not from a kiss. I wanted to sleep through this pain, awaken purged and new, stronger than before. Less prone to selfishness. Less prone to conceit. Less prone to guilt.

But that desire in and of itself — to slip away from this new reality and the people within it — was the truest mark of my selfishness, my conceit, and my guilt. We are scars and stories, all of us, and were before the world caught us off guard by ending not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with the low, rasping moans of the one terror we'd never imagined: a living death. I had to face it, remember what it meant: the loss of my parents, too many members of my group, and now the bright young man who had made me laugh and reminded me about love — I had to bear that, too. Had to live through it, stay awake through it all. My vigilance and my vigil were all that I could give him now. Were all that I could give to any of them, those delicate ghosts, stirring behind me, watching my steps, guarding my heart.

I would never be a professional journalist; would never travel the world beyond the Georgia woods. I would never have to endure an internship, the nine to five, traffic jams, or the rat race of "getting ahead." I would never dance in a nightclub, would never kiss anyone in the back of a cab. I would never cash a paycheque or consult a calendar for anything other than planting and harvesting. I would never, I would never.

I would dance, though, somewhere and for some occasion I couldn't yet envision. I would fall in love, already was stumbling towards something very like it. I could eat and laugh and make jokes; could read books and write poems and play with children. I could strive to enjoy my life, even as I fought for it and for others, tooth and gun and knife and nail. That my body had hardened and bore these scars, and would bear more — those were just stories for me to tell. I wouldn't write about presidential elections or the decline in various popular toiletries, but I would tell these stories: the people I had met and loved and lost; the homes that had been bought with blood and grief; the battles and the skirmishes and the journeys through forest and through rivers and through memory and through pain.

The deepest, purest honour I could give to Zach now was to tell his story, to remember him, to thank him and acknowledge what _he_ had bought with his blood: my life, Daryl's life, Sasha's life…and so on and so on, a hallowed rippling effect, a rosary of life and death, love and mourning. I could tell that story.

* * *

Michonne wasn't in her cell, but that wasn't unusual; she'd always been an early riser. I'd hoped to have a quick conversation to lay the groundwork for my campaign aimed to convince her, once and for all, to abandon the futile search for the Governor. It would take a while, I was sure, but we'd always waited a few days or even a full week or so before heading back out. I had time.

Out in the yard, under the shady cover of the cooking pavilion, I helped Carol prepare that morning's breakfast. The prison was beginning to stir, people heading for their jobs. Rick and Carl had headed out quite early to tend to the fields; Beth was feeding Judith back in her cell. We chatted idly and quietly about the List, about me resuming more of my duties and responsibilities within the community. Carol updated me about a recent council meeting, when Tim had said he was in need of more materials and resources for the kids. "There's a few elementary schools around, and the district high. He's talking about textbooks, not just paper and pencils. Textbooks and storybooks and all that."

I agreed to mention it to Sasha and Daryl, though I suspected it would be awhile before we screwed up enough resolve to head back out. It _was_ a good request, though — the kids were growing and learning fast, flying through the half-day lessons in reading, writing, and math that Tim offered; spending every other afternoon doing story hour with Carol. It must've caused her pain, I thought, in one way: the older girls, Ryan's daughters, they were both around Sophia's age, and the younger one, Mika, did remind me of her in many ways. She was quiet and sweet, frightened of her own shadow and content to rely on the protection of others. That concerned me and comforted me in equal measure: not all kids could be or should be like Carl, I felt, bold and eager to fight; but they couldn't be scared of everything, either. It was finding that balance between courage and caution, that was the biggest challenge facing parents now. Not for the first time, I thanked my lucky stars I wasn't saddled with that kind of responsibility — now more than ever.

But as always, things couldn't stay peaceful for long. Two booming gunshots rang out, deadened by the thick walls of the prison, and I dropped a jar of cinnamon clear into the pot of oatmeal at the sound. _No, no, no_ , I begged, reaching for a weapon I wasn't wearing. After my shower, I'd forgotten to head back upstairs to retrieve my thigh holster, and I'd left my knife behind downstairs. _Shit_. I would be worse than useless in any altercation.

The exterior doors to D-block burst open, and Mika and Lizzie were running full tilt towards us, screaming for help at the top of their lungs. Carol sprinted towards the girls without a word; Rick was coming up from the fields, buying me a chance to scan the area for any potential weapons. It had to be walkers; no clue how it could be, but only the dead would make those little girls scream like that. I spotted a fairly sizeable carving knife, one that Carol typically used to divvy up whatever meat Daryl brought home after his hunting trips. It was about nine or ten inches long — enough to keep my hand away from eager jaws, and though I figured it wouldn't offer me as fluid an attack as a machete, it would simply have to do.

"Walkers in D!" Glenn shouted, after consulting with poor Mika, who was trembling like a leaf as the adults ran by.

Rick had made it through the gate from the interior field. "What about C?" he screamed, voice breaking with abject terror. His daughter was in C. His whole world was in C. So was mine.

"Clear!" Chest heaving, I turned to see Sasha, Daryl, and Tyreese filing out of C-block's entrance. Not a perceivable scratch on them. While this could spell disaster for cellblock-D, it also gave us a much better chance for containing whatever kind of issue this was. Preserving the least loss of life could be our only goal. Rick and I raced further across the yard to join them. "We locked the gates to the tombs. Hershel's on guard," she added.

"It ain't a breach!" Daryl pushed past her slightly, crossbow at the ready. I gave them a moment, choosing to bring up the rear. I was armed only with that damn knife, and odds were, if we survived, I would be in for a hell of a dressing-down from my roommate for travelling throughout the prison unarmed. I fell in behind Tyreese, Rick hot on my heels as Sasha assured us that the security procedures developed by the council had been followed. Whatever the hell had happened in D, it was a goddamn mystery to us.

It was sheer chaos within. Blood was hot and sticky on the air; screams bounced and reverberated through the relatively small space. "Go!" Rick started pushing people out the door behind him. "Are you bit? Are you bit?"

A pair of hands gripped my upper arm as I tried to orient myself, find a purpose. I wheeled around to come face to face with Brandy, her blue eyes bright with fear. "Oh, my God, Riley, what the hell?"

The quickest scan I'd ever performed told me she had no discernible bites or scratches. I pushed her behind me, towards the door. "Just go! Go now!" I repeated the task and the directions over and over again, shoving mercifully warm, live bodies through the exit after brief scans and interrogations. Molly clung to my legs, not wanting to be alone — her mother and Luke were nowhere to be seen. "Go, sweetheart," I begged, pushing her towards Elliott, who scooped her up and ran past.

Ahead, just under the opposite staircase, I spotted a brown, curly head cowering beneath the towering metal. _Shit_. "Luke!" I cried, pushing my way through the crowd to reach him. "Luke! Wait right there!"

But he didn't need to; Daryl pulled the boy into his arms and Luke hooked tiny arms around his neck, leaving him free to fire a bolt straight into Greg's skull. I watched as the walker slumped forward to the floor, biting back a wave of nausea. I'd only met Greg a couple of times — once to personally deliver the shirt his corpse was now wearing. I looked back up to see Daryl handing the boy off to Karen, who pulled him back into the cell with her, slamming the door shut.

People were pouring from every quarter, and there were at least three to five walkers still milling around. "Go to the yard!" I screamed, reaching down to drive my knife deep into Albie's skull. He'd been reaching for my ankle. I couldn't wedge the knife back out, though — it was too deeply lodged within. _Slide it out through the same track_. I'd taught that to Zach once. I knelt beside him, attempting to put more power behind my pull; when it finally came loose, I fell backwards slightly, landing on a small pair of feet.

"Shit, Molly, I told you to go!" The girl was crying, heaving great gulping sobs of panic. She was goddamn lucky she'd been able to manage nearly the length of the cellblock to get back to me; she'd evidently escaped Elliott's grip somewhere outside. "Oh, hell!"

I wrapped one arm around her, pressing her into my side. Karen had the cell door shut, with her and Luke inside, but there was a free one next to her. "Carol!" I grabbed at her hand; her eyes shot down to the child by my side.

"Come with me!"

Where she took her, I couldn't be sure, because I'd spotted a revolver, kicked or dropped I didn't know, but mine for the taking. I dove down to pick it up — checked the moon clip while shoving a few more inmates down towards the door, cursing the entire time. There were a couple of rounds available, with one in the pipe. I leapt up a few steps, enough to allow me to aim upwards at what had once been Stephanie, a girl who'd helped out in the cafeteria. "Are we clear down here?" Rick shouted from somewhere behind me. I scanned the catwalk as best I could, but there was no way of telling from the stairs what might be lurking in the cells, so even as Sasha confirmed that the ground floor was safe and clear, I stomped my way up to the upper level, Daryl close behind me.

He angled past me once we'd reached the main cell area, stepping around the body of a young woman I'd seen around quite a few times but had never actually spoken to; I didn't even know her name. I couldn't tell how she'd died, but knelt down to slide my knife as cleanly as possible into the base of her skull, cradling her head against my shoulder. She'd been on the fence crew, I realized.

From behind, I heard the snarl of a walker. "Get down!" Daryl aimed the crossbow as I struggled to my feet, turning to see Glenn pushing it back against the wall. Daryl aimed a clear shot through the bars of the opened door, firing the bolt right into the walker's head. It fell with a deep thump back into the cell. Rick hurried past us, helping Glenn to his feet. "You okay?" I asked, reaching out a shaking hand to his shoulder. He nodded, visibly stunned.

I took a breather against the railing, as Daryl, Rick, and Glenn peered inside the cell that the latter had been trying to investigate before being accosted by the walker. Down below, a shocked silence had descended upon the prison. Here and there, a few inmates emerged from their cells. Julia ran back through the door leading into the prison yard; Karen helped Luke and Molly pick their way through the bodies to reach her, and I watched their reunion gratefully.

"Oh, it's Patrick," Daryl said lowly, regretfully, from behind. I squeezed in to stand between him and Glenn, and a hand fluttered to my mouth at the sight of one of the older boys — a year or two Carl's senior, I figured — who had always been so polite, so helpful, and who had, frankly, idolized Daryl, laying prone and bloody upon the floor, the green-fletched bolt sticking straight through his temple. "That's all of them," he added, though the quiet of the entire space had already told us that.

He and Rick began a slow, mournful progress around the cellblock, checking within each room for survivors; dispatching the dead within to ensure they would not reanimate. Overwhelmed, I let the carving knife clatter to the floor and I fled back outside, vomiting profusely behind a planter near the door.

Our world changed so quickly; new facts and pain had to be processed in a manner of seconds, but this was different. This wasn't a risky run; this wasn't being alone in the woods; this was being killed in our beds, right within our home. I couldn't figure out what had happened — one of them had obviously died in the night, but who? Who had been first? And how had they died, in such a way that none of us had noticed?

I found Brandy out on the bleachers, hand-in-hand with Elliott, who began apologizing vehemently for losing Molly once he caught sight of me. "I had her, I swear, Riley, but she just bolted. Started scratching me and screaming, and I let go. I'm so sorry," he choked.

"She's fine. She just wanted her mom." I wanted my mom, too, I realized. I wanted someone to comfort me, to hold my hand and tell me it was going to be okay. And this strange, furtive little part of my mind wished that I'd had someone to push me out today, somebody to tell me to get the hell out into the yard and out of danger. Someone to hold me on the bleachers while I shook the fear and the grief out.

Almost as though I had summoned him, Daryl's voice cracked out across the yard. "Riley!" he hollered. "Riley! C'mere!" Incredulous, I made loose excuses to Elliott and Brandy, walking over to him in a daze. His face was taut; one hand gripping his bow and the other turning white against the railing. "They were sick, real sick. Patrick and Charlie. They died first; Patrick started this."

It was some sort of virulent flu or cold, he explained, harsh enough to kill a fairly healthy teenager within a matter of hours. Dr. S and Rick had traced it back to the pigs and some walkers out on the fence, but the fact was, everyone in D-Block had now been affected. "Even us?" I whispered, advancing another stair, not for the first time wishing he was the type of person who knew when to offer a comforting gesture. "We were only in there for a few minutes."

He shook his head. "I don't know. But Rick don't want anybody who was in there going into C. Council's meeting in a few."

This was too much to process; I hadn't even had breakfast yet. The thought of some fast-acting illness coagulating in my veins, killing me slowly — I stammered out a series of disconnected questions he couldn't yet answer. "Stay here," he said quietly. "Just wait right here. In the fresh air. I'll come back."

* * *

Dutifully, I waited there on the step for the better part of an hour, breathing as deeply and slowly as I could. It might not be that bad, I reasoned. If Dr. S had been able to identify the illness, then we could treat it; we had a fairly robust store of medications available to us. He could treat the symptoms from the moment they emerged, perhaps even give us all some sort of preemptive dosage of something. It would be fine. It would be all right.

The door to D-block opened intermittently, as Carol emerged silently with a shellshocked Lizzie and Mika; and then as Mr Jacobsen headed out for some fresh air. I couldn't formulate the words, couldn't bring myself to ask what they knew or if they knew at all. And I strongly suspected that it wasn't my place to share it anyway — Carol would find out from the council meeting, and she would be a part of figuring out how to disseminate the information and any plans they made.

When Daryl did finally return, it was with two shovels and a soft bundle in one hand. The former items he leaned against the railing as I stood, knees creaking worryingly (for my age) and brushing the dust from my pants. "Bodies gotta be buried," he said, unfolding two bandanas from what I now realized was a canvas bag. "Wondered if you…you don't have to, but where you've already been exposed…" He winced. Obviously, he hadn't meant for that to sound harsh, but he was right, and I told him so, picking up a shovel and a pair of gloves and heading down to make a start, while he, Glenn, and Rick hauled the bodies from the cellblock. As we walked, Daryl answered some of the questions I hadn't even been able to ask: it was a flu-like illness, but Dr. S and Hershel still needed time to work on an official diagnosis; it had likely come from the pigs we were accumulating and raising; Karen and David were already showing signs, coughing and the beginnings of fever, and as such, anyone displaying such symptoms were going to be quarantined down in cellblock-A — what had originally been Death Row. But they weren't going to call it that, not at all.

The graveyard was far away from the fields, not even visible really, from the main part of the prison yard. When the first graves had gone in (T-Dog's and Lori's, the latter being sadly, empty) I think it had probably just been an arbitrary decision. But now it was better, I figured, as I chose a spot next to Merle's cross, digging the shovel in as hard as it could go — it was better for us not to dwell on our dead too often. Those wooden monuments to bodies we had recovered and those we had not stood only to remind us of what we had lost, and those kinds of thoughts were better left to be sought out, rather than constantly heralded and recalled. _Yes_ , I decided, shifting that first cleft of dirt — this was better.

Glenn and Daryl brought Patrick out first, wound in the star-patterned sheet that had hung across his doorway. They laid him next to the few notches I'd made already in the ground, having only gotten down about six inches or so in an irregular pattern, and then Glenn made his way back up to the prison to help Rick with the additional ones. "Here," Daryl said, handing me a bandana. "Tie it around your mouth and nose."

I'd never been able to do it; not back when, after the attack on the quarry camp, T-Dog had handed me a green bandana and realized I couldn't manoeuvre it underneath my ponytail. My hair was shorter now, but still I stared dumbly at the pile of fabric in my hand as Daryl deftly secured his, tugging it securely a couple of times to ensure it wouldn't slide down. When he noticed I was still just looking at mine, he reached over and folded it into a triangle, then stepped around behind me to tie it at the back of my head. When his fingers brushed the nape of my neck, I shivered with more than shock. "Gloves too." He pointed with his thumb, over to where he'd leaned his crossbow against a small sapling.

We dug for hours, pausing only for cigarette and water breaks, courtesy of Julia, who was trying to keep her children out in the air as much as possible, obsessively watching them for signs of illness. We dug in silence, both too mired in confusion and shock to do anything but plunge the shovel into the dirt over and over again until it became an almost soothing repetition. There were plenty of moments that called for some verbal acknowledgment, even a brief eulogy, but neither of us seemed willing to step outside that dull, stunned reverie. Tucking those bodies gently beneath the ground, it took all of our strength, I think, to push away the funny anecdotes or short remembrances — the sort of thing people shared at funerals — along with the keen, cruel awareness that their last moments on Earth had been bloody, raging, agonizing, or otherwise the utter antithesis of what we were trying to overcome here.

Owen was our penultimate charge, a boy of nine or ten, brought out by Glenn and followed by his weeping mother, who confessed, between sobs, that she couldn't bear to watch him go into the ground. I'd walked her back up the hill, a comforting hand on her shoulders as I reassured her that Daryl and I would be careful with him, would put him close to Patrick, would mark his grave with something special when the time came. Though she hugged me, sweat and dirt and all, for what I had said, I knew it meant nothing, and could really do nothing for her. I watched her pass through the main gates and return to the yard, sick at the thought of her child being put in the ground.

"How are you?" Rick strode towards me, his face uneasy and his movements almost jumpy as he passed Erin, the grieving mother, pausing only to squeeze her shoulder briefly before joining me. Paternally, he gripped my shoulders, examining me up and down as I self-consciously readjusted the bandana over my mouth. I nodded. I didn't really have the words to describe what I was going through at the moment, but I knew that, of all people, Rick Grimes would understand this reticence.

He followed me back down the hill towards Daryl, who was still resolutely digging away at Owen's grave, the small, white-wrapped body nearby. "Glad you were in there," he said as we approached, flinging another load of soil over the edge of the hole.

Rick shrugged, looking away from us, over towards his fields. "Wasn't much use without my gun," he said, dejectedly.

I exchanged a look with Daryl: I knew that Rick's refusal to carry a gun anymore was a significant bone of contention with the council. Everyone on it, from Sasha to Hershel, had tried desperately over the past several months to persuade him to arm himself more efficiently, that a knife just wasn't going to help if something bad happened, particularly outside the walls of the prison. Normally, I myself wore my thigh holsters, keeping my collection of (now numbering two) Bowie knives close by, and a .38 in my back pocket. In the chaos of the cellblock, I'd felt nearly naked without them.

But now wasn't the time for an argument about this — Rick had done his part, more than his part, once again, and we needed to acknowledge that. "No, you were," Daryl countered, pulling down his bandana to speak more clearly. "All this time you been taking off, you earned it."

"Definitely," I added, lowering myself to sit near the edge of the yawning earth, taking a sip of water. The heat of the day was oppressive; summer had finally arrived in full force.

"We wouldn't be here without you," Daryl pointed out as I handed him the water bottle, which he accepted with a grateful nod.

I gestured to the fields during the pause, as Rick reached for one of the extra, longer shovels Glenn had brought out about an hour or two ago: "We wouldn't be _eating_ without you." It was true; some of the early crops Rick and Carl had been bringing back up to the kitchen were making a huge difference in the health of many. Scurvy was my biggest nightmare, besides RJ, Chloe, and Andrea: Carol and I battled every day to ensure people were eating their fruits and vegetables, every last damn bite. And that wouldn't be possible without Rick's "break."

But he just shook his head at our commendations. "It was all of us."

"It was you first," Daryl insisted. He paused a moment before continuing, as though choosing his words carefully: "You gonna help us figure this out?"

The council needed Rick, or so many of us there in the community felt. He was our natural leader, having proven himself supremely capable on innumerable occasions. Sometimes, I worried that my ardent, shall we say — devotion — to him bordered on the blind and disillusioned. Ever since that first day in the quarry camp, when he had come back from the dead and brought us order and honour and something to strive for, I had simply just followed him. Always agreed with whatever he said was best, except for that slight hiccup after the initial trauma of Woodbury, when I'd chosen Daryl instead. But since then, I had come to rely wholly on Rick's counsel and decision-making, doing whatever he advised best with relatively little independent deliberation. Whether or not this was entirely wise on my part, I'll leave that for others to decide. Rick's capable leadership had been proven time and time again: he protected the group, ushering us to safety and guiding us through truly terrifying experiences. Personally, what appealed the most to me about his style was the simple fact that he routinely sought the counsel of others. He collaborated. He requested input and he didn't railroad over us. He lead us through the fire, stalwart and sure, but always of our own volition, always with trust and questions and cohesiveness.

When he had declined a position on the prison council, however, it had surprised us all. The members we had elected had been doing a fine job: the community was operating efficiently, with few issues and disruptions. Supplies and resources were distributed fairly; disputes handled deftly; security measures organized effectively; and all signs pointed towards the continuance of this success. But Rick's surety and sagacity were missing, even I could tell, and I had never attended a meeting or participated in any official decisions at all. Rick was missed; he was needed.

The fact that he didn't share this opinion wounded me somewhat, as the three of us sat and stood there under the hot sun, looming over the graves of people we had loved and lost. That we possessed the luxury of time and safety to add these graves to our small graveyard at all was a great testament to what he had done for us, how he had provided for us. Rick Grimes gave us a new flag to stand for, a new and bolder declaration of rights and dreams to fight for — he had saved our lives and given us, in a world of death, a small graveyard. That was not to diminish our dead, not at all — but it was something. It was something, and I was suddenly very sad that he could not see that, did not want to keep that going.

"I screwed up too many times," Rick replied heavily. "Those calls you got to make? I start down that road…I almost lost my boy — who he was. Whatever else this place needs, I'm here for it." Between breaths, the memory of a blue-eyed child in the woods rose around us; he was buried out there in the trees. I'd done it myself, a few days later, marking it with a circle of rocks. He wasn't mine; God, he must have been fourteen or fifteen, but he was still somebody's boy. He could be mine for that task. And Carl, though it burnt my heart to admit it, had murdered him. If the fear of returning to that state was what was keeping Rick down, motivating him to spend more time with animals and plants and his son than making tough decisions — well, I could understand that.

Daryl turned back to digging, considering this reply. "Like I said, you earned it. But for what it's worth" — his shovel stilled, looked back up at Rick — "you see mistakes, I see when the shit hits, you're standing there with a shovel." He dug his own into the top edge of Owen's grave, using it to lever himself out. It wasn't near the standard six feet, but it would do. We could lower the body in, have a brief respite, and then get to work on poor Charlie, who was laying in wait further down the hill, wrapped in the purple sheet from his cell.

"Rick! Daryl!"

A woman's voice thundered across the fields, high and bright with panic. Daryl's ear was the finest tuned, so Rick and I simply followed him as he sprinted off down towards the bottom of the prison yard, heading for the opening of the double-fenced run extending around the perimeter of the property. Quickly, we realized we needn't have placed so much blind trust in his hearing — it was plain to see what had Maggie screaming so desperately, right there, several yards in front of us.

Clingers had been building up for weeks now; the fence crew was easily the largest group in the prison community. They worked around the clock, even through the night, to keep the number of walkers pushing and moaning at our barriers to as much of a minimum as possible. They used spears and knives and Merle's old rebar trick to slip through the chain-links and dispatch our most unwelcome guests. But the lure of so many people living in such close quarters within their grasp was steadily proving to be far too tempting to those guests, and they had succeeded — during this morning's chaos — in building up thickly against the side of the fence closest to the gardens. As we picked up the pace and neared the inner run, I could clearly see where a ten foot segment of the barricade was about to give way under their weight.

"Noise drew 'em out and now this part's starting to give," Maggie barked, pointing at a pile of clinger implements the fence crew had been using. She shoved a long piece of rebar through and indicated we should do the same. Daryl handed me a sharpened broom handle and took another for himself.

I'd never applied for fence crew work; I hated it, to be honest. A putrid miasma tended to linger near the fences, even though the crew tried to keep up with burning the bodies or at least hauling them off every few days or so. And more to the point, I hated the way they simply kept coming at us, dead eyes and grasping hands, practically impaling themselves upon our weapons, an endless line of dumb lambs to the slaughter. Striking one down in the heat of an altercation was an entirely different experience; this felt like something far too close to murder for my comfort.

But now my family was at risk; my home and everything I cared for in the entire world. If the fencing gave way, our security would be further compromised at an inopportune moment, leaving us vulnerable from within and without. Even as those dumb sheep pressed themselves against the chain, cutting into their own skin with the force of their will, their eagerness to consume us. The broom fit well through the diamond-shaped panes, allowing me to skewer one and deftly dislodge, in search of another. There were far too many, though — and though Glenn had joined us now, we would not be able to eliminate the entire horde this way. Three more times I jabbed my broom through the fence, aware of Rick's cries of frustration cresting beside me, an angry storm.

"Ugh!" The broom stuck in the eye socket of what had once been a man, lodging itself so firmly that, in trying to pull back, I actually stumbled forward, fingers and face trailing perilously close to the stinking herd beyond. Rick gripped my upper arm, tossing me back behind him on the grass, then finished off the one I could not, managing to grab the makeshift spear before it fell through the opening.

"You good?"

Daryl's voice was low, heated, strained in my ear; he helped me back to my feet, distractedly running his hands over my bare arms, my own bruised hands. "You good?" he repeated, peering closer. I nodded, and he returned to his task, satisfied that I wouldn't be craving his kidneys anytime soon.

Snarls snapped and curled around us, a hum of misfortune, peppered throughout by our grunts and groans of exertion and dimming hopes. Maggie fell shortly after I'd reengaged in the fight, tumbling backwards into the gravel in frustration, but on we pressed, determined that this would not happen. It could not happen. Our numbers swelled with the arrival of Tyreese and Sasha, but still, it would not be enough, I feared. More and more walkers were stumbling from the forest beyond, drawn by the commotion and the promise of flesh. My hands ached and slipped around the wooden handle; the rattle of the chainlink struck fear into my heart as I wondered, wildly, which sound would precede the ultimate fall of the structure. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Sasha pulled her spear out from the fence, distracted by something on the ground near her feet. "Are you seeing this?" she asked, incredulous.

Littered around the edge of the fence, on our side, were the remains of at least a dozen or so rats — bloodied and torn to pieces, some half-hidden by the long grass. I poked at one or two with the tip of my broom, turning them over to try and ascertain if they'd been bitten or cut. "Has someone been feeding these things?" I slid my eyes up to meet Sasha's gaze; a series of disconnected, panicked thoughts and possibilities roiling about in my mind. Could these meals have drawn the fence clingers, even more than our screams? Or could this be some sort of technique from the fence crew, something we didn't know about?

I opened my mouth, ready to share this (admittedly flimsy) theory, but was interrupted by the abrupt realization that the fence was indeed beginning to fall down. Next to Daryl, it was bowed out at least two feet beyond where it should have been, swelling like a boil ready to burst. "Heads up!" he cried, shocking us all back to attention.

"This part of the fence, now!" Sasha ordered, unnecessarily. Together, we pushed and pushed, trying to force the group back, but to little avail. The dead weight of over two dozen walkers was pressing down upon it, exploiting any rust or flaws due to low maintenance. Creaks and groans conflated into an unholy buzz; Glenn's voice rose above it all, imploring us to stop, to wait: "Hey, hey, hey!"

"It's gonna give!" Rick screamed, and we pushed, we pushed, oh, we pushed. Every ounce of strength any of us had left we put into that fence, willing it to hold, to keep us safe just one more day. "It's gonna give! It's gonna give!"

I pressed a fist into the icy silver of the nearest pole, trying to wedge my boot under the bowing baseline of the structure, acutely aware that behind me, my right foot was slipping in the dusty gravel of the inner track. Muscles stretched and snapped to accommodate the force, to muster the strength, but it wasn't working. I glanced over; even Tyreese — all eighteen feet of him — was struggling under this weight. _It's going to give_ , I thought dully, a stunned echo of Rick's panicked shouts. It was going to give way, and we would all be trapped beneath it as the horde came stampeding through.

And then there was an arm winding around me, tucking underneath my armpits, dragging me indecorously backwards until I could scrabble back to my feet, standing between Daryl and Rick, watching as every hope we'd planted here was threatened by the malodorous horde before us. "The fence keeps bending in like that, those walkers are coming over it," I heard Sasha say, somewhere down the line.

Beside me, Rick turned, glancing out towards the gardens behind us — our food, our lifeline. We could kiss all of that behind if the dead came in. They would compromise our plants, kill our livestock, our pigs and our chickens. I reached out a comforting hand, and Rick took it in his, looking down at me with a rueful, resigned smile. "Daryl," he said quietly, breathing heavily, but not breaking away from my eyes. "Get the truck. I know what to do."

* * *

I stayed with Glenn, unable to watch as Rick sacrificed the pigs for our fence. It was the right thing to do, the only thing he could do, but I was glad I couldn't hear the animals' distressed squeals from where I stood, still resolutely jabbing the broom through the fence, waiting for the numbers to abate.

Daryl drove the pickup truck around and around outside the fence, pausing briefly at intervals to allow Rick, sitting on the bed, time to draw blood from each pig and then drop them to the grass below. In a sickening Hansel and Gretel parody, the walkers followed the scent of the hot blood eagerly, falling upon the trail of breadcrumbs eagerly, turning away from Glenn and I with our pesky tools. Tears filled my eyes as I thought about the weeks of hard work that had gone into those pigs — obtaining them and their mothers from an abandoned farm last fall; constructing the additional lean-to and pen they required; feeding them for months, fattening them up. Carol and I had planned elaborate future meals, even begun to delve into the possibility of building a smokehouse one day. Rick had raised most of them from piglets, I thought. And now here he was, killing them.

"Hershel thinks we may have gotten the flu from them," Glenn said lowly, once the number of clingers had gone below ten. Tyreese had returned, hammer and nails and planks in the wheelbarrow ahead of him, to help us reinforce the base of the fence. "We're better off without them, Riley, and they are, too."

I'd lost friends, family — my whole damn world. But there I was, crying over some dead pigs.

That afternoon, I drank a bottle of wine. To our health.


	27. Isolation

_**Chapter XXVII: Isolation**_

Dreams, when they came, were dark, wine-soaked, and hot. My bed was too small, and the floor too cold, so I passed the early supper hour by leaning against the far wall, smoking a cigarette and watching Daryl's chest rise and fall in his stunned, exhausted respite. We could steal these hours, these hours of fading light and regretful silence, as we tallied the loss of our day - the graves we had carved from the earth; the bodies we had buried within; the reconfiguration of our homes, as most of us were moved into quarantine in what had been death row; as Daryl and I struggled to find comfort in a stranger's cell. We could steal these hours, these hours of weariness and grief. We could have them for our very own.

The fence had been bolstered as much as we could manage, reinforced with a series of makeshift buttresses attached every two feet or so down the main line of the exterior barricade. Our unwelcome guests had diminished in number and enthusiasm, drawn off into smaller groups by the pigs and then swiftly dispatched by Daryl, Glenn, Rick, and myself, while Sasha, Maggie, and Tyreese handled the construction. After a few hours of that, most of us had retired for a brief rest, finding beds where we could. I'd discovered a bottle of wine in the kitchen and had tried to drink from it until I was violently sick, vomiting once more into that unfortunate plant pot just outside the main entrance. And then I had tossed and turned on someone else's bed.

"Hey," I murmured, as blue eyes snapped awake and met mine. "You good?"

He nodded, hair falling into his face as he struggled to sit up, exhaustion tethering his limbs to slumber, pulling him back into feathery, innocent depths where no one was dead and a fatal sickness did not stalk our halls. My fingers twitched around the smouldering cigarette between them - the urge to push him back, to protect him from inevitable pain was so strong, so strident.

But he was good, he was ready to go again. Ready to take care of whatever miserable shit the world threw at him next, just like always. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the grief - tears misted my eyes and I reached out to him, suddenly craving contact in a way I couldn't verbalize, couldn't possibly explain. I stood, stepped into unsure arms, whispered tipsy endearments that he knew I didn't mean, not yet. It was okay, though, just for a moment, to pretend - to claim a little island of calm in a wild sea. "'S' gonna be alright," he said, patting my shoulder gingerly. "We'll figure it out."

I'm sure it seemed an odd pose: we were not, by nature, a demonstrative pair, and so his arms felt stiff and uncertain around me; my own hands didn't know what to do when they'd made their way around his sides. Should I pat him, I wondered dimly? He felt new in my grip, as though he had become a different person since that morning, since our world had begun crumbling from within. I wanted to explain, to justify this foreign approach, and I opened my mouth against his shoulder with the full intention of doing so, but a cry - a deep, bellowing cry - echoed from somewhere nearby, out in the hall or on the catwalk. Daryl's arm tensed around my back, tugging me flush against his left side, as the cry rose again, inhuman and aching. I shuddered. "Wh -"

"Get your knife," he muttered, releasing me roughly. "Quick."

Out in the cellblock, others had gathered, drawn to the pitiful sight of Tyreese as he fell to his knees near the staircase, hands clawing at his eyes as though whatever he had seen was emblazoned there indelibly. The handle of the Bowie was slippery in my fingers; my breath had a shaky edge to it, composure long since seared away. _What now? What more could we bear?_

There were no words for his grief, so we followed him - Rick, Daryl, Carol, and I. We made a panicked procession through a maze of hallways, down past the far reaches of A-block, where already a parade of sick inmates were making their way, pillows clutched under their arms in a sad mockery of childhood sleepovers. "It's alright," Carol said intermittently to Tyreese and those that we passed. "Everything's fine." Tension snapped taut between us, and briefly, boldly, I wished I could reach out for Daryl's hand. Red bloomed in my cheeks at the prospect - not that he would have noticed anyways: his eyes were trained on the ground, following the sticky, spattered trail of old blood. I stepped lightly to avoid it.

The odor of simmering decay flooded the tiny concrete yard, pressing against my pores in a way that made me feel I'd never be clean again. Vomit pressed again at the base of my throat, but I swallowed hard and strove to keep it down. We moved further into the yard, despite the smell, despite the horrific tendrils of smoke rising from the two charred bodies there on the ground. "You found them like this?" Rick asked quietly, after a beat.

"I came to see Karen," Tyreese replied, his voice low with a kind of mournful rage. "And I saw the blood on the floor. Then I smelled them."

 _Karen_. A smiling, pretty face. Kind to a fault. Shaking in my arms months before, desperate for forgiveness. _Oh, Karen_. My eyes began to blur and the corpses shimmered, tearstained, before me. _Oh, God_.

"Somebody dragged them out here and set them on fire." Tyreese's voice was shattered, hollowed out by grief, ragged in my ear. An answering sob rose eagerly in my throat. "They killed them and set them on fire!"

Beside me, Daryl stepped cagily, wanting to pace, to assess the situation. Of their own accord, seeking a comfort I could not find elsewhere, my fingers brushed the skin of his arm, and he did not twitch away. Instead he turned, gaze hot on mine, mouth forming an entreaty to go, to leave. He felt guilty for bringing me here, I knew, for making me look at this. "Riley -"

"You're a cop." Tyreese had advanced towards Rick, forcing Daryl to step away - poised though, to pounce to Rick's defence, if need be. "You find out who did this and you bring 'em to me. You understand? You bring 'em to me."

I had never seen Tyreese like this, and the stark contrast of his usual breeziness against this fulsome rage caused a flicker of fear in my stomach, even as I allowed the tears to pour freely. Poor Karen. Poor, poor Tyreese. They had developed something of a sweet relationship these past few months, and I had been grateful to see the woman who had had to play dead to escape the Governor, following the death of her son, allowing herself to feel again, to be alive. Tyreese had done that for her.

And whose was the second corpse?

"Hey," Daryl said softly, reaching over to clasp Tyreese's shoulder, who just jerked roughly away from the touch.

"I need to say it again?" Tyreese continued, eyes blazing so hard that Rick had to look down, shaking his head.

"No."

I stepped backwards, turning to Carol, who had simply gone stockstill in the face of this new tragedy. She and Karen had been good friends, I thought slowly. She needed me now. I could do this for her. When my hand wrapped around hers, the chill brought neither of us comfort.

Rick spoke lowly, in the calming voice he used when he knew a stressful situation was at risk of escalating dangerously. It was his policeman's voice: "I know what you're feeling. I've been there. You saw me there. It's dangerous."

"Karen didn't deserve this!" Tyreese bellowed, gesturing again to the burned corpses. "David didn't deserve this. Nobody does!"

Daryl's eyes darted to my face, and I nodded. _Defuse this_ , I wanted to say. _Let's all just calm down and think rationally_. At the jerk of my chin, he stepped forward to gently grasp Tyreese's shoulder again. "All right, man, let's -"

His body twisted with the force of Tyreese's massive frame slamming him backwards against the metal bars of the yard's gate; Daryl hit them with a _clang_ that made me want to scream in borrowed pain, and I found myself pushing against Tyreese's back, slamming ineffectual fists into the wide expanse of his back. "Man, I ain't going nowhere 'til I find out who did this!" He rolled his shoulders backwards, trying to flick me off as though I were just an annoying fly, tapping at his back. Daryl shook his head and held up a hand, around Tyreese's side, silently telling us we should stop, let Tyreese do what he was going to do.

Rick gripped my upper arm, pulling me back and away from my futile assault, and together we watched as Daryl - chest heaving in time with Tyreese's, vest pulled up and close to his chin - levelled an impressively calm gaze at his assailant. "We're on the same side, man," he said evenly.

"Hey," Rick ventured, still holding me tight. "Look, I know what you're going through. We've all lost someone. We know what you're going through right now, but you've got to calm down."

Fists tightened on Daryl's vest; my heart settled in my throat, pressing against my self-control. What could I do? What the fuck could I do?

To answer my unasked questions, Tyreese shot back with a ferocious speed, releasing Daryl and rounding solidly on Rick, giving him only a second to release me and push me towards Carol. "You need to step the hell back!" Tyreese snapped.

And then Rick said it: the stupidest, most aggravating thing he could have said in the presence of Tyreese's broken, pulsing, furious heart. And hot on the heels of his words came a fist, hurtling towards his face. "She wouldn't want you being like this."

The blow caused Rick to buckle, and I froze in the face of a stream of blood pouring down his face. This day, this goddamn day. "Stop!" Carol shrieked, diving to intercede between Tyreese's preparations for his second blow and Rick's face. "Stop!"

Again, he drove down, bringing Rick further to the pavement. As Rick grasped for purchase on the ground, Daryl lunged and wrapped his arms firmly around Tyreese, gripping him tightly around his chest, wrenching him away with everything he possessed. "That's enough," he growled. "That's enough."

Rick struggled to his feet, running a hand gingerly along the physical, vicious echoes of Tyreese's untenable rage. "Oh, shit," I breathed stupidly, my brain trying its very best to catch up to and process these events. "Oh, shit."

The punch sent Tyreese reeling, positively whirling from Daryl's arms to crumple on the ground. _Fine_ , I thought rapidly. _Fine, it's done_. But it wasn't done, not yet - Rick kicked hard up into a prone Tyreese's gut, driving him back against the metal gate. He stood over him then, boots straddling either side of his stomach as he sent a flying series of blows to Tyreese's face again and again, the sick sound of flesh hitting flesh nearly drowning out Daryl's imploring demands for him to stop. "Rick, Rick!"

I was still frozen, still bearing uncertain, nauseated witness to this horrifying turn of events. Ten minutes ago, I'd been in Daryl's arms - now they were gripping Rick, yanking him away from Tyreese. Now the notes of frothing, frenzied grief were playing out on this cold, cold stage and bile seared my lips and I could not, could not, could not.

Outside, the dead walked. The Governor's spectre loomed still. But we were safe. We had to be safe. Within our stone walls, among the tender shoots of our hopes and plans - we were safe. Weren't we?

* * *

My estimate was just about five ounces. That was probably all I'd been able to actually consume of the wine, while Daryl had slept. Half of the bottle I'd actually poured out; the rest burned my lips with guilt and misery and had joined the rest in the plant pot. But in the aftermath of Tyreese's performance, all through the night, I brought up more and more against the fence, until finally, my knees gave out and I rolled over to my side, staring out at the wide, green expanse of the forest beyond.

Heaving, hoping there was no more to give, I half-crawled my way back up to the prison. We weren't allowed back on the cellblock, so I stopped in the closet cells and grabbed a towel and some clothes I figured would mostly fit me.

The cool cascade of the water against my skin was a welcome reprieve from the grasping notes of my own disappointment, my own grief. Karen was dead. David was dead. And not only that? They'd died horribly, repulsively. And the prospect posed by the manner of their deaths only truly hit me then, as I scrubbed soap behind my knees and wished I could do the same to my memory: they had been _murdered_.

We existed now in a world buttressed by threat. Every second of every day was patterned by the risk of our own demise, we knew that well enough by now. But those risks were supposed to be external and thus, manageable. Walkers at the fence? We killed them. Storm coming? We nestled the livestock in safe and made sure we had plenty of clean water. Illness stalking our halls? We'd reassess, get the medicine we needed, heal our people.

But there was a murderer in our midst now, at least one. Yes, yes, we were all killers now - or, at least, most of us were. Karen and David, though, had been _sick_. Defenceless. Lying weak and ill upon their beds, dragged from them and...the trail of blood we followed said it all. They'd probably been dying on the way to the yard, and then set on fire once the killer had gotten them out there -

"Fuck," I said aloud, pressing my forehead against the cold kiss of the concrete wall. "Fuck." Too much had happened in too short a space of time, and I wanted a plan. I wanted to _do_ something. Puking and showering and crying wasn't going to fix this.

The council was meeting in the library; once their session had ended, I could talk to someone in an official capacity about what we were doing next. Purpose had always made me feel even a little bit better in chaotic circumstances; I toweled myself off and shoved into the borrowed long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Hair dripping, I decided to wait out the rest of the meeting by finding Brandy, since we had not yet had a chance to discuss the crazy shit going down around us.

I was not sure where to look first. As a resident of D-block, Brandy would have been quickly relocated and isolated. No one in the cafeteria had seen her recently; I checked outside, too, thinking she may have wanted some fresh air or a short walk. The basketball court was empty, so too were the front steps to each cellblock. Out in the field, though, just beyond the fence, I caught a glimpse of Elliott, crouched near the graves, watching Tyreese and Bob work at the dirt, doing absolutely nothing to help.

 _Oh, God_.

Here is panic: licking through your veins like fire; a stone in your throat; jelly in your fingertips; a brand of preemptive pain stamping itself along every inch of your flesh. I do not recall wrenching open the gates or streaming down the hill; I only know that one moment I was noting Elliott's hunched figure in the distance, and the next, I was grabbing at the back of his t-shirt, choking out questions I didn't really want the answer to.

She was sick, he told me. Sick, but not dead. Coughing so hard in the middle of the night, sweat pouring from her brow. Sick and scared, so he'd brought her to quarantine. "Shit, Riley, not her," he begged, as though it were up to me, as though it were fucking up to me.

I moved through the corridors in a new daze, facts dancing discordantly in my mind as I tried to acclimate myself to everything that had happened in the past few days: Zach was dead; the walkers yesterday morning, and the subsequent massacre; the awful sight of Karen and David's bodies in the yard; the illness and the murderer residing somewhere in the prison with us now.

And I had just stood there. In the yard. Dumbfounded and afraid. Longing for a drink.

Past futility lended an urgency to my actions now. I could fix this. I had to fix this.

When Brandy appeared at the window of what had once been some sort of telephone room, where prisoners from A-block would have come to talk to their visiting loved ones, I almost did not recognize her. Gone was the bright smile, the flash of mirth in her eyes. She had grown paler, her limbs shaking as she sought to steady herself against the counter. "Hey, girl," she said weakly. "You doing okay?"

"Am _I_ doing okay? Brandy, what's going on?"

The cough had begun last night, she explained, boiling over into a fever, at which point a desperate Elliott had brought her down to A-block, to quarantine. She felt awful still, aching all over; chest and throat scraped raw. "Hershel said we just have to go through it, that he and Dr. S can treat our symptoms if they can get some meds."

"He's still with the council," I added. "Must be what they're planning for." A supply run, this time specifically for medication. Problem was, most viable places nearby had been cleared out long before now - hell, before we'd even arrived at the prison. Pharmacies, clinics, even a local daycare - all pillaged and rummaged through. Aspirin was precious; anything we could get our hands on was really. But antibiotics? Those were going to be an absolute bitch to find. We were staring down the barrel of a needle in a haystack situation, and even then, with a major potential search area.

Hospitals were typically a no-go. In the early days, people affected by the initial fever and symptoms of the outbreak had naturally been brought straight to the ER or their local doctor. Meaning that, when they turned, guess where they were? Still in the goddamn waiting room.

We needed antibiotics for this. Even I, with my limited medical knowledge, understood that. Aspirin and band-aids were going to do jack-shit for our sick. I just couldn't figure out where the hell we were going to get them. I had some notebooks stored upstairs in my cell, filled with a few rough maps and disorganized observations from our expeditions abroad, but I'd mainly been preoccupied with recording useful information that might help Michonne, Daryl, and I figure out a potential path for the Governor's escape. When I _had_ taken the time to jot down notes about local landmarks or possibly-helpful-in-the-future facilities, I hadn't always been thinking in the event of a major medical crisis.

Which I could fully and enjoyably kick myself in the face for now.

"Riley? You with me, honey?"

I started, refocused. Brandy, my friend, sick and possibly dying in front of me. "Yeah, sorry." My eyes were itchy. Why were my eyes itchy? "Look, everything's going to be fine, okay? The council will figure something out. I'm sure we'll be heading out on a run soon."

Of course, even if a group did head out, there was no guarantee I'd be selected to accompany it. The last large-group supply run had ended in Zach's death; likely, there would be an instinct know to keep numbers small, to limit the number of people actually away from the prison. Here at home, it would be all hands-on-deck. Was it selfish of me, I wondered, to want to leave? To look at poor Brandy shaking and ashen before me, and simply look for the first chance to leave? Was this cowardice masking as courage?

Brandy leaned forward again, her forehead nearly touching the glass, smudging a sheen of feverish sweat against the pane between us. I inched forward to meet hers. Our friendship so far had been fast and fun; not as deep as mine had been with Chloe, but resolutely dashing towards something very like it. "Thank you," she breathed, relaxing into the barrier. "Thank you."

I'd tried to save Chloe. Tried my damnedest. But I'd been wholly unprepared then for the world I was dragging by sick and dying friend into. Back then, love had not been enough to surmount the odds of ignorance in the face of the horror the world had become. Now, though, I was armed with more knowledge and skill than I had possessed in my early days. I'd travelled through walker-infested woods and byways all the way to the Alabama border; I'd saved the people I loved; I'd fought a battle in my own mind. I could handle myself with a knife and a gun and unrealistic expectations. I was by no means invincible, but I was more aware. And that awareness could save my life. And Brandy's.

If there was a run, I was going on it. For her.

We parted with a promise and two kisses neither of us could feel, on cheeks of glass.

* * *

"No fucking way."

I rolled my eyes, stuffing a few extra protein bars into the backpack. "Yes fucking way," I countered, grabbing another canvas bag from the pile. We needed to makes sure we not only had enough bags to carry the meds in, but that they would be easy to carry out of the veterinary college. We could not be sure of the reception we would get there. It may quickly become necessary to run or even abandon our car. In this case, boxes would not work: anything lightweight, foldable, and with straps was our best option.

"The less people, the better," Daryl grunted, crossing his arms a little more firmly across his chest. He'd followed me down to the closet cells with the intimation that he was planning on helping, but so far, had done nothing but treat me like a three-year-old.

I tossed the bags at him, forcing him to release his arms and thus relax his pose. Perhaps that could have some influence on his frame of mind. "Normally I'd agree with you, D, but not today."

"Why the hell not?"

Hershel had already given me the go-ahead. Rick, too. Hell, even Carol was encouraging. I knew the area pretty well, and - like Daryl and Michonne - had ventured out into the fifty-mile radius we were now aiming for. That meant we could have three navigators familiar with the terrain, always a plus on a long-range run. If the group got separated, so long as the others had at least one of us with them, we could rendezvous at a specific location. Mich had already determined some of these locations, and I knew I could find my way to most of them fairly easily. In the event of separation only.

But yes, his objection did make sense. Our number of potential defenders at the prison was thinning as more and more residents succumbed to the flu. Some were trying damn hard to resist being taken to quarantine, and the office blocks had been designated for our most vulnerable individuals (the young and the old). This meant that our two medical providers would be all but run off their feet, a good chunk of our council would be gone, and some of our best fighters (Daryl, Michonne, and Tyreese) would be off on the supply run.

And we still had a potential murderer stalking our halls.

So yeah, I agreed with him objectively. I should stay behind. Help out. Be an extra pair of hands or an extra set of eyes. But then Brandy's face came back to me and the thought of those poor kids sick in their beds, all those innocent people I'd come to care so much for - it made the decision easy. Rick would remain, as would Carol, Maggie, and Glenn. Add to that several fairly capable fighters originally from Woodbury and Daryl's scouting, and there would be enough at the prison to handle the horror.

I just wanted to go.

Unsure of how to verbalize this, I simply shot him a look. A look he'd grown used to by this time, a look that plainly said, "You're not my babysitter. Back the fuck off and let me think for myself."

It was all in the quirk of my left eyebrow, that really drove the point home - or so I felt.

"You drinking again?"

 _Ah_. I paused, dropping the additional backpack I'd found back into the hamper. How the hell had he known? I'd puked most of it back up, and then had brushed my teeth until my gums had bled. I was minty fresh, free of suspicion. Totally in control.

Looking back at him seemed a weighty task. I took my time, straightening slowly and arranging my features into a mask of innocence, perhaps with a touch of bewilderment. When I turned to face him, it was with the full expectation that I would project an air of quiet indignation - but his intense gaze was not accusatory, as I'd expected, but soft and sad, and that I had not studied for.

I hung my head instead. No nod or verbal confirmation was required. "Shit," he said, setting the bag down on the floor and rubbing a hand over his chin. "Shit, girl."

As a kid and a teenager, I had not gotten in trouble all that much. I wasn't wild by any definition - when I did mess up, it usually involved a fight with my brothers or…well, that was basically it. And while there was something slightly troubling (that I would deal with later) about drawing an association between the look on Daryl's face right now and the faint disappointment my own mother would often possess when I had demonstrated less-than-acceptable behaviour, I couldn't help the roiling of half-shame, half-mortification from stirring in my stomach and causing my face to redden.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, fighting back tears I had no intention of actually shedding. The icing on the goddamn cake here would be to cry in front of Daryl.

"No, don't…" He sighed. "Don't apologize. Just...aw, shit." He began to unbutton his shirt.

He began to _unbutton_ his _shirt_.

"Dude, what -"

The vest slid from his shoulders at the same time the shirt beneath it did, leaving him bare-chested and clearly embarrassed in front of me, clothes in his fists. For a moment, we just stared at each other, and then he turned.

I'd forgotten about the scars.

Vivid and angry, they stretched purple and old across his back. Back in the forest when I'd seen them, I'd been heartbroken for him, for the image of a little boy I had never known feeling the lash of a belt on his skin. But then time had passed and we had grown closer and a kind of silence had fallen between us.

" _My dad used to drink_." He'd told me that a while ago. Stupidly - selfishly - I'd never stopped to make the connection between that confession and the marks on his back.

"Oh, Daryl," I murmured, wanting to touch him, to make him turn back around so I could tell him, eye to eye, how sorry I was, how rotten I was. What a lousy fucking friend I was.

As my footsteps drew closer, he turned, hurriedly unfolding his shirt and vest from where he'd balled them up in his hands. His cheeks were tinged with pink, eyes downcast. It was the most vulnerable he had ever allowed himself to be with me, and the moments had been taxing. He shoved his arms through the holes where sleeves had once been, and I read in his jerky movements, in the laboured breathing, that showing me his back had been impulsive, and he regretted it.

I had the power to make sure he didn't. If I could show him I was listening.

"Your father did that," I said slowly. "He did that to you...when he drank?"

Daryl nodded.

"I would never -"

"Shit, Riley, I know that." He kicked his foot at the door-jamb; he was anxious to go, I knew. We didn't have this much time to waste. But I also figured that this conversation, this lecture, was likely going to be the price of my admission on this supply run. Daryl wanted to be sure I was sober, and that my intention to remain so had been reaffirmed.

"I know you ain't gonna start whaling on me," he continued, settling down on the lower bunk of the cell. There was no mattress; that had been removed and brought out to one of the guard towers months before. But I had replaced it with a sheet of plywood, good for folding clothes. It made for an uncomfortable sitting position, but the fact that he motioned for me to join him there seemed to sweep those concerns right out the window. "When you drink like that - not for the taste or to be social or whatever, that's different. But when you're drinking to forget, or to drown something? That...that changes you, you know?"

But that was the point, I wanted to say. I'd turned to wine and beer and whisky precisely because they afforded me a transformation, a metamorphosis. I could atone for the things I had done wrong, when I drank. I could be someone different for a little while. Someone who could know pain and pleasure simultaneously, who could pay for her sins and enjoy the heady notes of indulgence, all in the same moment.

"It ain't gonna take away your problems, Riley. Just gonna take the best parts of you."

I fixed a teary gaze upon the concrete floor. Everything that had happened - everything that _was_ happening - everything that _could still_ happen - and he was worried about me. About the best parts of me. A warmth I had not felt in far too long spread to my fingertips, filling me with a kind of glow, a glow of acceptance, of belonging. Someone who did not have to care (how many times had I pointed out that he held no responsibility for me, and as such had no right to dictate my actions or veto my wishes?), simply did care. For me. He cared for me.

He'd known I was drinking the moment I had hugged him, I realized now. He would have smelled it on me, guilt and wine. But he hadn't railed, hadn't pushed and prodded - he'd waited. Shown me patience. Waited for me to come to him. The utter simplicity of our exchange, in stilted words and frank visuals, was driven by whatever he felt for me, and I for him. Would he have done the same for any other individual struggling with alcohol abuse in this prison? Absolutely? Would he have bared his back and his past to do so? I'm not sure. For a man as closed-off as Daryl tended to be, removing his shirt and allowing himself to be so...so...so open, blatant, and so clear with me was a significant step in the burgeoning intimacy between us.

And for once, another sign of us growing closer failed to send those pleasant little sparks of excitement trickling down my sides. Instead, I felt somehow humbled, weighed down with the importance of his words and his actions.

The best parts of me. He knew the best parts of me. He could name them, even when I could not. I turned to him, lips parting in some further question, but he pushed up and away from the bunk. "We leave in ten. Be out in the yard or you're getting left behind."

Still Daryl then. I followed with a stunned smile and the rest of the bags.

* * *

In the car, squeezed between Tyreese and Bob, I caught his eye a few times in the rearview. Once, he held my gaze, and then cleared his throat, as though overcome. For the most part, we five sat in silence - knowing what we had left behind at the prison, knowing that we now had to traverse fifty miles of walker-infested territory, all on the slim chance that nobody had thought to raid the veterinary college. We were all hopeful that the initial assumption of the locals would have been that the animal medications would not work for people - an incorrect assumption that just might buy us the chance we needed.

I'd gotten into the back seat beside Tyreese with some trepidation. His outburst in the prison yard over Karen's death had been wholly understandable, of course, but I had grown so used to simply seeing him as a gentle, affable soul that his anger had been incredibly jarring. Watching him body slam Daryl back into the gate, pummel Rick to the ground - it had changed the air between us. Attuned as always, he seemed to pick up on my hesitation, and though his voice was dull and distant, he apologized for frightening me so the day before. Bob cleared his throat awkwardly, and as we exited the prison road and pulled onto the main highway, I patted his knee softly, offered him a quick word of reassurance. We couldn't bring Karen back for him, but things would be better. We could heal the rest of our sick and honour her properly when they were well.

"Hey," Daryl ventured from the front seat. I glanced up, but he was looking at Michonne in the passenger seat next to him. "I know you weren't running off. Thing is, that trail went cold." Briefly, he checked the road ahead, then returned his gaze to her stony expression. "You know that right? If it was any different, I'd be right out there with you." His eyes flicked to mine in the mirror. "Both of you."

After a tense pause, Michonne did look at him, but there was nothing there, even I could see it from the back. It was her standby, "well, shit" expression. She knew he was right; she'd known I was right when I'd pointed out the same thing, but it all came down to the essential point that the Governor had not been killed, he could still be out there, and Michonne wanted his other eye.

In an obvious attempt to fill the returning silence, Daryl leaned forward slightly, still steering with his left hand, to fiddle a bit with the radio controls. Static, nothing but static. This wasn't a surprise, and I wondered for a moment at his logic: perhaps doing so was just another old-world gesture, a habit from his life before. You get in the car and you fix the radio, find something good. "Why don't you hand me one of them CDs right there?" he asked Michonne, who obliged by reaching down to the glove compartment.

I leaned back slightly in my seat, apologizing briefly to Bob, who had to wiggle a little to make room for me. A slight ache tapped behind my eyes - likely down to the stress of the last, what, thirty-six, forty-eight hours? How long had it been since Zach's death? And then, before that, God, Michonne and I had been out on the road for weeks - I hadn't really had a chance to properly rest, not in days and days…and I was so, so tired now, if only I could have a few minutes to just…

"... _find sanctuary_."

My head jerked up from where my chin had been drooping down to my chest. "Is that a voice?" Bob asked incredulously.

" _Shh_!" Daryl held up a silencing finger, then leaned forward to toggle the tuning knob between two or three frequencies.

"... _determined to survive...keep alive_ …"

It _was_ a voice. Faint, punctuated by static, but a voice all the same. An honest-to-God human voice, on the damn radio.

The silence between us now was not awkward or tense, but charged with confusion and expectation. We'd heard the standard emergency broadcasts plenty of times, but those tended to be tinny and repetitive. This voice, though we struggled to hear it clearly, had inflection and intonation - it was not some soulless, recorded message. This was somebody intentionally broadcasting. What the hell did that mean?

"Daryl!" I snapped forward, pointing towards the female walker who had wandered into the middle of the road. So focused on the radio and Michonne, he'd failed to notice her, and swerved now violently to miss hitting it. Not that we were concerned about killing her, of course, but the force of an impact might do some damage to the vehicle.

The tires squealed indignantly as Daryl struggled to keep the car on the road. He wrenched at the steering wheel, turning it this way and that, as a handful of more walkers began to stumble into view. After what felt like ages, he ground to a halt. Panicked breathing filled the car as we all tried to adjust to this new wrinkle in a plan that had been going fairly swimmingly so far. Up ahead, the highway opened up to the wide expanse of the railway, upon which rested an abandoned set of cars - and from which descended a mass of hundreds of fucking walkers.

"Oh, God," I muttered.

At least a dozen or so walkers had begun to crowd around the car, knocking and jostling us around with the force of their hunger. Daryl turned, eyes blazing with intent. "Grab something," he ordered, gripping the back of Michonne's seat. I leaned to the side, grasping the back of the driver's seat and practically laying in Tyreese's lap so that my head would not block Daryl's view out the back window.

He reversed rapidly, the car jerking roughly each time it made contact with a walker. We managed to go back at least twenty feet up the road before we stopped, the back end of the vehicle slightly raised. In the front, Michonne scanned the area before the windshield. "Go to the left," she said quickly, pointing to a clearer spot on the edge of the road. If Daryl could get the car there, he could pull a u-turn and get us back down the road. There were a few side roads about a mile back.

Though he pressed firmly on the gas and turned the wheel with all he had, we couldn't move. A grinding sound from the back plainly said we were hung up on the pile of bodies.

Gross.

"We're jammed up," Daryl said. He turned to face us in the back; I pulled myself into a sitting position, my hands fumbling wetly on the buckle of my seatbelt. "All right, make a run for the gaps right there." He pointed out the passenger window, past Michonne, to an area where the number of walkers had indeed thinned, likely by us driving right through them. Between the three of us alone, we could take care of them hand-to-hand, while the other two fought a little more long-range. Beyond their numbers and the sandy shoulder of the road, the woods would provide some cover.

In front of me, Michonne nodded and slung her katana over her shoulders, ready to dash out at the next signal. "You three," Daryl added, eyes boring into mine particularly, "you make a run for the woods and you don't stop for nothing, you hear me?"

 _Scars on his back; care in his voice_. " _The best parts of you_."

"Now!"

With two hands, Daryl punched upwards on the sunroof, popping it clear from the top of the car. Michonne opened her door and hurried out, sword drawn and vicious. As Bob struggled with his own seatbelt and we gathered the few canvas bags we'd stowed at our feet, Daryl grabbed at his crossbow and pushed himself up and through the roof of the car. Following the whistles of two shots being fired, he slid down the windshield in front of us.

Beside me, Bob still could not get his own belt to cooperate. I drew my Bowie from my thigh holster and sawed through the fabric, allowing him to disentangle himself and open the car door. "Ready, Ty?" I asked over my shoulder, chest heaving with adrenalin. I did not pause to hear his reply.

Within seconds of emerging from the car, I fucking tripped. Stumbled over the pile of bodies still trapped beneath the wheel - some still alive and grasping. Bob fired off two shots before turning back to me, heaving under my left arm to help me to my feet, steadying me as I reached over to stab through one getting a little too close for comfort. The scent of decay rose high and putrid on the air around us.

It always surprised me how delayed fear could be. I knew that, if I survived this altercation and made it to the quiet and safety of the woods beyond, I would soon be bowled over with anxiety, terror thrumming through my veins. But for now, in the moments that mattered the most, I was focused solely on my knife and scoring a path through the press of dead bodies.

Bob and I had advanced only about five feet or so when we realized Tyreese had not followed, and was still in the car - around which the knot of walkers was gradually growing more and more frenzied. I stopped short on the shoulder of the road, one foot on pavement and one foot headed for the forest, straddling a moment of indecision. Going back would mean my death.

"Ty!" Bob cried. "Ty!"

There was no response, no reaction. "Fuck," I cursed, turning to head back. I'd pull the goddamn idiot from the car if he wouldn't come on his own. No way he was getting left behind.

Bob fired off three or four more shots as I tried to navigate my way through the bloody throng. "Riley! Get the fuck back here," Daryl barked. "Come on!"

There was no way I could move forward. Thirty or forty walkers had made their way to the car now; more were coming. This was a massive herd and my knife was no match against them. Even if I did manage to return to the car, I tried to remind myself, odds were, both Tyreese and I would die trying to get back to the side of the road. S

I hated moments like that. Choosing between your own death and a slim chance of saving someone else. "Shit, shit, shit," I muttered, jabbing my knife to the right. "Come on, Tyreese!" I screamed. "Come on!"

Behind me, Daryl was still resolutely calling my name, growing more forceful with each beat. To my utter relief, though, Tyreese did emerge from the backseat of the car, removing his hammer from his waist as he did. Furiously, he began waving it around, smashing at least three or four square in the face.

"Riley!" Bob lunged forward to grasp my wrist, tugging me back towards the treeline. I looked back once: Tyreese had allowed a small knot of walkers to crowd around him. "Come on!" he bellowed, striking out wildly with the hammer.

The whistle of a bolt drew my attention forward. Daryl lowered his bow with only a quick glance over at Ty. "Come on and get me!" Shaking his head, he gestured towards the woods ahead of us.

"But Tyreese -"

"Come on."

Foliage, thick and green with the promise of summer, afforded a moment of calm as we pushed through the branches. Some walkers had followed us, or had naturally made their way in beforehand, confused stragglers from the herd. I picked my way carefully through exposed roots, feeling my heartbeat slow and knowing that, any minute now, the fear would begin to creep through me, stupefying my movements and dulling my thoughts to anything but the urge to scream, to shake, to be sick.

The headache had flourished now, resplendent in full-blown, consuming pain.

I let the others deal with the stragglers, choosing instead to scan the forest for a likely path forward. "Go!" Daryl ordered, after I pointed to a fairly clear, lightly-tramped out path ahead. The way the sunlight filtered through the green, I could tell there was some sort of meadow ahead.

After a minute or two of steady sprinting, we did indeed break out into a small, grassy clearing - perhaps a campsite or something before the world fell apart. "Come on," he said roughly, pointing ahead to the resumption of the thicker press of trees.

But before we had made it too far into their leafy embrace, he paused again, holding up a hand to stop us, too. "Hold up." He stole back to the edge of the trees, setting down his crossbow to pull up on the string, arms corded and tense with the force of it. Something had followed us, I knew.

Back across the clearing, at the opposite treeline, some branches rustled, and I tightened my grip upon the knife in anticipation, heart thudding madly now. Two walkers stumbled from the green, and Daryl nocked a bolt and poised the bow, readying himself to fire. Someone, however, beat him to it.

Tyreese - bloody and covered in gleaming guts - emerged from behind the two walkers, slamming his hammer into the one closest to him. Weary and spent, he crumpled to his knees in time with the corpse. The second walker turned back to him, deciding that the closer meal would be a better idea - but Michonne managed to drive her katana through his head before he could get too close.

With Tyreese's large frame supported between the two of them, Bob and Daryl followed me further into the forest, Mich bringing up the year, as my feet pounded and my heart jumped up into my throat, as I prayed for the first time in a very, very long time.

* * *

 _ **Merry Christmas, if you do celebrate it! If not, I hope you have a lovely week :) Thank you so much for reading. Any reviews or comments would be much appreciated.**_


	28. Indifference

_**Chapter XXVIII: Indifference**_

Dangling my feet in the stream was not enough; I wanted to swim. Cool water rushing over my skin; knotted muscles giving way beneath the massage of a gentle current. Granted, the body of water in front of us now was good for little more than soaking your ankles or stopping for a drink - but I wanted a river. An impossible river with an oceanic tide, pulling me far away from this dangerous shore.

"You okay?" Bob crouched next to me, inspecting my face as though anticipating an answer to be scrawled across my cheeks, scratched and dirty from our madcap escape through the forest. "You look a little…"

"Runway ready?" I ran a hand through my hair; a few twigs sprinkled out and a leaf fluttered down past my nose. We both watched its descent in a stunned kind of exhaustion. "Gee, Bob, you're too sweet." His expression twisted, rue and slight amusement colliding despite himself. " I'm fine. Don't worry."

He didn't look convinced, but he also didn't press the issue. We were pretty well officially screwed: stuck in the woods with no vehicle; only the few empty bags that he and I had managed to snatch and carry out with us. Neither of them contained the protein bars and water bottles I'd packed for our trip. Behind us, up on the bridge, Daryl and Michonne were debating which way to head, not only to avoid the herd but to get back on track to the college.

Bob squeezed my shoulder as he passed, heading over to join the discussion. I glanced further up the bank, to where Tyreese was silently wringing the blood from his soaked t-shirt. He had not spoken since we'd reached the creek, not one word through the whole flight. The wild, incensed fury he had displayed on the highway played still in my mind: raw grief and misery driving him to raise that hammer again and again in splashes of blood and always with the risk of a set of teeth sinking into his exposed arms. That unrestrained rage - all in honour of Karen, I knew - was gone now, usurped by this simmering silence which made it impossible for me to venture any sort of expression of concern. I was - and this shamed me - afraid of him.

Water dripping from my toes, I dried my feet with the hooded sweater I'd brought along. I'd been a bit chilled earlier on in the journey, but now, still pumping with the heat of fear and adrenaline, I elected instead to wrap it around my waist after slipping back into my boots. The day was warm, anyways, I reasoned, shuffling to my feet at the sounds of decision from the group behind me.

"This is Turner Creek," Michonne said, acknowledging my approach with a quick nod, "so Barnesville must be a few miles downstream."

The name was familiar; we'd passed over this creek once or twice during our travels. "Sounds like our best chance at finding a new ride," Bob added. He had a good point. Thirty or forty miles still lay resolutely between us and the college; we couldn't cover that much ground without a vehicle, not if we wanted to get home quickly. And we sure as hell wanted to do that.

"Yo, Ty," Daryl called, noticing that I'd begun to advance towards the bridge. "Come on, let's go. _Vámonos_."

I glanced over my shoulder, trying to navigate the lip of the road; Tyreese was still resolutely washing his shirt, offering no indication that he had even heard Daryl (who was now headed further up the road, Michonne in tow), let alone that he had any intention of accompanying us. I exchanged a look with Bob, who just shook his head. "Ty," he said, withdrawing his gun in preparation for the walk ahead of us. Clearly, we had not gotten rid of the entire herd; there was still a risk of them catching up to us. Somehow.

No answer. Tyreese didn't even look up.

"Ty!" Bob tried a more insistent tone.

Nothing. Nothing but the squeeze and fall of more bloody water from his shirt.

I leaned forward onto the railing of the bridge; up ahead on the path, Daryl and Michonne had paused, looking back to see why the rest of us weren't following. When Mich took a few steps towards us, I held up a hand; ganging up on Tyreese right now was not a good idea. Better to cajole him into coming along, rather than try and force him into it. "There should be a town a few miles south," Bob continued.

"Lost a whole night." I cringed at the tight ferocity in Ty's voice. So unlike anything I had ever heard from him before. While we weren't exactly best friends, all of my interactions with him since Woodbury had been positive, reassuring. Ordinarily, he was a kind, gentle man - but, I reminded myself firmly - he had just lost his girlfriend, in a horrible, horrible way. Sasha, his sister, had been brought to the quarantine cells just before we'd left. If he was pissed, unpredictable, and angry, I sure as hell could not blame him. "My sister, everybody else - they're probably dead."

Protest choked in my throat. I coughed to cover the curse.

Bob noticed my grip tightening on the railing, reached over to brush a finger against my knuckles. "Well, it helps to keep moving," he said firmly, as much to me as to Tyreese.

"No, it doesn't."

"If we don't fucking get moving," I snapped, "all those people _are_ going to die." Tyreese shot me a resentful look, mouth gaping open around a sharp retort, but I didn't stick around to listen. Bullshit. Utter bullshit. _Sasha's not going to die. Neither is Brandy._

Dust kicked up satisfyingly around my feet as I stomped further up the path. One particularly eager cloud of it rose up a little too high and I coughed again, prompting Daryl to turn, pulling the one water bottle we'd apparently managed to bring with us, recently filled with stream water. "Don't worry, got it before Ty started washin'," he muttered, watching as I took a quick swig. "You good?"

"Just dust," I replied, gesturing to the sizeable divots I'd left behind on the path. "Relieving a little frustration, D."

His mouth quirked at the old nickname. I'm not sure when it started, but the first time it slipped out, he'd actually - honest to God - smiled. Out on the highway, during one of our early missions looking for the Governor, he'd made some sort of observation about the growth of moss on a nearby tree or some tracking shit like that and I'd fired back with something witty. And "D." One letter spoke volumes, I thought in retrospect, about where we were heading and what we had come from. Familiarity and comfort, a shorthand for more emotions than we could articulate at the time.

Handing the bottle back to him and catching the sudden lightness in his gaze, I realized that we hadn't yet had a chance to talk more about my embrace, in the minutes before finding Karen and David. Well, _our_ embrace. How naturally I'd stepped into his arms; how quickly he'd welcomed me. His subsequent discovery of my drinking had effectively slammed the brakes on any probing into the matter, and, granted, discussing it out in the forest, during the middle of an urgent supply run - in full earshot of three other people - was not the most ideal option.

So I left it there.

Sweat began to roll between my shoulder blades as the day wore on; we walked for at least another twenty minutes in stony silence. Barnesville couldn't come fucking soon enough.

We were just passing the eight thousandth beech tree when Daryl came to an abrupt halt, stooping to dislodge something embedded in the path by his foot. When he stood, I caught sight of a flash of pale, smooth green between his fingers. "Is that jasper?" Michonne asked, genuinely curious, taking a step closer in the same moment I did.

He wet his thumb and ran it lightly over the surface of the stone, rubbing away the clinging dust and dirt to reveal even more of the lovely shade. "Pretty," I murmured.

Daryl nodded, adding an "mm-hmm," presumably in response to both of our contributions.

"It's a good colour," Michonne said with a grin, the first I'd seen on her face since we'd arrived back at the prison. "Brings out your eyes."

Almost upon instinct, at her words, I looked at his eyes. You know, the kind of knee-jerk response you get when somebody says, "Hey, nice shirt," and even though you put on the damn shirt yourself, you find yourself looking down at it just the same? Makes me feel like an idiot every time, but there I was doing it again - I knew his eyes were blue, understood that as a scientific fact. I also knew they blazed when he was angry, hardened when he fought. But I'd never before realized, not until my gaze jumped from the jasper to his face, how gray they could be, too. A real steel-blue. Cool and deep.

He visibly coloured under my examination, turned back to the stone in his hand. "When Miss Richards went into A-block, we were leaving," he said softly. "Asked me to keep a lookout. I'm gonna use it for her old man's marker."

My stomach dropped. The name was not unfamiliar, though I'd known the woman as Holly, rather than Miss Richards. She was quiet, keeping mainly to herself though she often helped out in the garden. Her father had _not_ been quiet - a very loquacious figure who preferred to spend his time in the cafeteria, regaling us all with tales of his time as a ranch hand in New Mexico, a card dealer in Atlantic City, a blacksmith's apprentice in Iowa. Most of his stories, I'd realized early on, were simply embellishments, if not outright lies - but he told them with such aplomb, with so many conspiratorial winks and endearing little details that we all let him carry on. He had died in his sleep several weeks ago. The first peaceful death I'd heard of in a long time.

"You know them all back there?"

Daryl gave the stone a last little polish as he weighed Michonne's question, tossing it from one hand to the other as he started down the path again, before actually replying. "You stay in one place more'n a couple hours, you'd be surprised what you pick up."

Michonne's face tightened slightly, but she wasn't angry. I was surprised, really, at how frequently Daryl was referencing our time away. Over the past couple of months, though, it had become clear - particularly when had actually stopped coming out with us - that he did not wholeheartedly approve of the venture. His time at the prison, bringing new people in, hunting and providing for the group - all of those things grew to mean far more to him than seeking revenge on what amounted now to little more than a ghost story.

On the bike, riding out to the doomed supply run a few days ago, I'd told him I wasn't going back out. I was done looking for the Governor, wanted to try living for real for a little while. Breaking off a piece of whatever contentment had been driving most of the others. The problem was, now, of course, things weren't content, weren't settled. The sickness that had infiltrated the prison, coupled with the grim reminders of the risks of our world in the form of those deaths, had disrupted the rosy notions I'd been nursing of comfortable evenings in our cell, easy work, passable food - trying to build something on the shaky foundations of a shy friendship.

Reality has a troubling habit of sweeping into view just as your world is spinning well, just when you've decided that you've got a handle on how things should be. After all, they say if you want to make God laugh, you've got to make a plan.

Well, God must have been laughing pretty damn hard right about now.

Another half hour of walking saw us breaking out from the forest path to a side road. Power lines, though now rendered entirely useless, were a comforting sight, meaning that we were now likely closer to Barnesville and thus, the promise of a vehicle. My calves were aching, and I was pretty sure I'd given myself a sizeable knot somewhere in the vicinity of my right hamstring, kicking those holes into the road. We rounded the gentle corner of the road, past a sign promising the best fried pies in the world, just up ahead, but first, the gray metal sheeting of a mechanic's shop and attending service station came into view.

Tires and an oil drum or two littered the front parking lot, as did a few fallen trees. We'd had a fairly bad windstorm about three months ago; likely that had swept through and knocked them down. Curiously, I paused at the raw, gaping wound of a stump where the trunk had snapped off. It was about waist high, and I ran my fingers over the dead wood in a sort of private eulogy. I'd always so hated to see a tree cut down.

Daryl stepped up beside me, fingers playing about his bow, gaze fixed on the thick cover of green reaching from behind the shop. "You see something?" Bob asked, noticing that we'd stopped. I followed the line of Daryl's sight and realized that the leaves and branches of the felled tree had been arranged somewhat strangely, as though there was indeed a structure or something underneath, raising them up slightly from the ground.

"Don't know. Maybe." I helped him shift the heavy branches, tugging and yanking them out of the way, electing to ignore the scratch of broken twigs in favour of uncovering the mystery. He reached around my back to help me tug at one particularly stubborn fan of leaves, revealing the faded, dented side of a minivan. "All right," he said quietly. "Can y'all clear more of that off the front, I'll try to get it started?"

As Bob and Tyreese worked on the thicker branches laying across the windshield, Daryl crawled in through the passenger seat to work at dislodging and redirecting some of the wires on the driver's side. Though he had asked me to help the others, curiosity drove me to observe over his shoulder as he worked. RJ had once given me a sheaf of instructions on how to hotwire a vehicle, I remembered suddenly; what had happened to those notes? Perhaps I'd left them behind in the bloodstained tent?

"Shit," he muttered suddenly, releasing the wires with a jerk, pushing backwards slightly to emerge from the van. "We gotta find us a new battery."

"Think we can find one in there?" I asked, nodding to the service station, the front lot of which Michonne had begun to pace.

"Maybe." Daryl spat slightly on one hand, reaching over to wipe it on the dusty window peering out from the cinderblocks. A split second later, dead hands pressed against the glass from the inside, with an audible growl. "Got some friends inside," he added. "Come on. Let's clear a path, see how many we got."

The fallen trees and nature in generally had clear been busy reclaiming the storefront; a steady, bright green encroached heavily across the windows and doors, effectively concealing the entrance from view. Our knives would help a little in cutting away most of the branches, but we needed to figure out where the door was as soon as we could; that would enable us to concentrate our cutting.

I ripped at some of the branches, hoping to catch a glimpse of glass or a handle, but they were so thick, so heavy. To my left, Tyreese was hacking away enthusiastically, echoing a similar kind of manic force as he'd displayed out on the highway. Nervously, I took a step backwards, exchanging a questioning look with Daryl, who jerked his head to his right, indicating that I should work at his other side, bypassing Michonne and putting some distance between myself and the hacking machete. She would have enough space to avoid Ty's swings.

"Hey, man, go easy," Daryl said, pulling aside a sizeable branch. "We don't know what we're dealing with."

My forehead was sopping, dripping down into my eyes. I paused for a moment to wipe the sleeve of my hoodie across my face, taking in the general facade of the building, as much of it as I could see. I figured that the door would be closer to Ty and Bob; the rest of us were working too close to the separate shop. They would have wanted to keep the counter and door as close to the main pumps as possible, right? Just in case people shoplifted or tried to make off with gas or whatever. It would give them a pretty good view of the main road. Meaning that any minute now -

With a series of almost pained grunts, Tyreese grasped and his hands disappeared into the thicket of green, wrenching backwards abruptly, all accompanied by a heavy metallic rattling. He tugged and tugged, his hands and weapon resurfacing bearing what looked like a thin kind of chain. Ah. So somebody had locked the door on their way out, I realized. Probably to keep our new friends inside.

I screamed when it happened. Honest to God. And I hadn't screamed in such a long time. But the hand was disembodied, a nightmare grasping Daryl's vest, pulling him forwards, and even as I lunged forward with my knife, I couldn't stop the panic from unfurling, gurgling into the surface in that choked cry. Michonne reached him first, the length of her katana slicing through the arm neatly. By then, though, another had emerged, further up the line, this time managing to squirm its entire dead torso through the branches, holding tight to Bob's shirt with both hands, drawing him closer to gaping jaws. "Mich!" I yelled hoarsely, trying to collect myself enough to scan the whole situation.

As she moved down to help him out, Daryl stabbed his knife through the head of the walker that had been trying to attack him, leaving her hanging dumbly. Another head rolled away into the parking lot, away from Michonne's dripping blade.

"Tyreese!" Daryl snapped brutally, and I glanced over to see that a third walker had managed to work its way out from the branches. Tyreese had an almighty, two-handed grip on the thing, leaving him no way to stab or strike it in any way.

"Ty, let him go," Michonne said firmly, adjusting her grip on the katana, trying to determine an angle at which she could come in and solve the problem for him. But the fact that Tyreese was refusing to let go made that essentially impossible for her.

Hungrily, the walker pushed further and further towards Ty's face; the dead weight and its sudden release from the tangle of branches caused Tyreese to stumble backwards, then crash mightily to the ground - the walker with him. In two quick strides, Daryl was grabbing at the back of the walker's shirt, pulling him away from Tyreese so that Bob could get a good angle to fire off a round square into the dead thing's skull.

"Why the hell didn't you let go?" Michonne asked harshly, voice cutting sharp as her sword through an uneasy calm of heavy breaths, and deep regret. Retreating once more into surly, mournful silence, Tyreese refused to provide an answer.

* * *

My head pounded, and the nausea that often accompanied an onrush of panic had settled resolutely in my stomach. Too much, I wanted to say. It had all been too much. Daryl and Bob headed in to check the station for a battery we could use for the van; Tyreese and Michonne were preparing to hack away more branches from the van so Daryl could have a clear workspace. As Tyreese made a start, I found myself sliding down the side of the machine shop's concrete wall, needing a single moment to breathe, to rest my leg and rub out the approaching cramps.

Michonne reached down to brush a few strands of straggly, damp hair from my forehead. "You okay, kid?" she asked softly, peering at me with a concern that felt almost maternal. "Need anything? Want to sit in the van for a while?"

The heat would be even more oppressive within, so I shook my head, untying the sweater from my waist to wipe again at my face. "I'm fine. Just need a break. Be good to go in a sec."

What was Brandy doing now, I wondered? Sleeping, I hoped. Resting easily, with good dreams, away from the wracking cough and the barbs of fever through her veins. Elliott had probably visited her by now, chatting to her through the window and keeping her spirits up. She was waiting for me, I thought sleepily. Waiting for all of us to come back with pills and syringes full of relief. And we would. We would.

The _creak_ of the van's hood startled me awake from the light doze, as did the faint scent of cigarette smoke on the air. I stretched the ache from my legs, rubbing slightly at one calf as I drifted over to where Daryl had begun rummaging about in the front of the van, obviously settling the new battery under the hood. Bob had lit cigarettes for both of them, and fished a third out of the pack for me. For the first time, I had my own.

"Two times, two different groups," Bob continued, in whatever vein he and Daryl had been discussing before I'd arrived. "I was the last one standing."

A trail of smoke curled from between my lips as I listened. Bob had never spoken about his life before the prison, not in my hearing. Then again, we'd only met a few days ago. On the day everything had begun to topple in such a miserable stream of dominoes. "Like I was supposed to see it happen, over and over. Like it's some kind of curse."

Carefully, Daryl poured from a large bottle of distilled water, aiming for the newly-nestled-in battery. I wasn't quite sure why - perhaps it had needed to be cleaned? He paused for a moment, glancing over with a grave expression, a trace of levity added by the sight of his cigarette hanging rather limply from one corner of his mouth. "But," Bob continued, exhaling his own cloud of smoke, "when it's just you out there with the quiet...used to be, I'd drink a bottle of anything just so I could shut my eyes at night. Figured the prison, the people...thought it'd be easier. The run to the Big Spot, I did it for me."

At Bob's admission, Daryl's eyes had shot to my face, gauging my reaction. I saw again the pale innocence of his skin, marred by his father's drunken rage. That poor little steel-eyed boy, and the man who cared about the best parts of me. My cheeks flooded with colour. "You gotta keep busy," Daryl said then, taking a deep swig from the bottle. As though nothing had passed between us at all.

"No," Bob countered. "I did it so I could get me a bottle. Of anything. I picked it up, I held it in my hand, but I put it down. I put it down so hard it took the whole damn shelf with it. That's what brought on the walkers, and that's what got Zach killed.

There was a hollow, aching moment then; Zach joined us under the hot sun, amidst the smoke and the guilt, the weight of one secret shared and one secret held. "That's bullshit," Daryl said firmly, mouth twitching around the cigarette. I let my own fall to the ground, stubbing it out with the toe of my boot, my stomach suddenly soured by the tone of this conversation, and the unspoken footnotes of my own experience. Selfishly, I chose not to confide in Bob, to alleviate some of his guilt by letting him know he wasn't the only one struggling.

"Why don't you get in there and try the engine? It's a red and a green wire." His voice was sharp but not wholly unsympathetic; the air was charged between us three now, but Daryl seemed determined to restore some sense of balance. "Go on," he added, when a silent Bob made no move towards the van. "It ain't rocket science." Bob slid behind the wheel. "Give it some gas."

The engine hummed to raspy life, and Daryl, in an uncharacteristic show of as much delight as he could muster, stuck the cigarette back between his lips to give two brief little claps, and a whistle to alert Michonne and Tyreese. I decided to claim the very back bench of seats for myself; the little catnap I'd managed to enjoy just a few minutes before was a very tempting state to return to, and I planned to indulge in it for the last leg of our journey. I stretched out, folding the hoodie under my head, and, eyes closed against the tapping in my temples, listened as Daryl gave his final word on the matter, to Bob up in the driver's seat: "Sasha and me picked that spot. We took you with us. There ain't no way anybody could've known. You ain't gonna be standing alone, not no more. Let's go."

* * *

 _Here I am, baby. Here I am, sweetheart. Here I am, Rye._

My mother beckons me forward, and I reach out a child's hand to clasp hers tight. My oldest brother smiles, and RJ kisses me quick.

 _Here I am, honey._

Karen moves from the shadows, dark curls shining.

Was there a world without a knife in my hand? Was there a world with no blood save that bought from a slice of paper, an errant mosquito bite scratched too hard? Was there a world without that pain, deep inside, the twisting absence of a heart no longer sure how to love?

 _Here I am, girl._

Blue eyes, cold and metallic, but they make me feel so warm, so warm, so warm.

* * *

The town was small, quaint. A road-trip kind of town, the one you can't help but pull over in, buy something overpriced to stamp it close to your memory. All wrought-iron gates and brick buildings crafted of story.

Michonne shook me awake after the uneventful forty-minute drive, offering me only a critical inspection that ended with me feeling more than slightly ill at ease. My dreams had left me ragged and wanting, and though the headache had ceased somewhat, the soreness I'd earned on our long trek through the woods had not been aided or relieved by the way I'd scrunched myself up on the back seats of the van. "Are you sure you want to come in?" she asked, backing out to give me enough space to crawl through the side door.

"Of course," I replied hoarsely, stretching the sleep from my arms. "Fine."

And I was fine, really, I was. Sick of people asking me how I was today. Just tired and sore and older than my years, following mutely as Daryl and Tyreese led us through the winding streets of what had once been a sweet little town, rounding the corner to see the bricked peaks of a distinguished building, the college we were looking for. Inside, the world was cool and dark, the rooms lined with papers and jars and containers of things I could not name, bearing a knowledge I did not possess.

Michonne stepped into a larger room beyond the classroom, lined with glass-fronted mahogany shelves bearing even more jars and bottles. Happily, as I looked down at the floor, I spotted an empty reusable grocery bag. A good thing about the apocalypse? There was always random, useful shit just lying around for the taking.

"Anything ending with -cillin or -cin, C-I-N, grab it," Bob instructed. He'd been brought along for this very reason; his experience as a combat medic meant he knew this language, this language of endings and beginnings, where the final three letters of a word could mean life or death. "We'll dissolve the pills in the IVs, put 'em right into the bloodstream. Dosage will be tricky but considering the time we lost…"

I shoved a handful of promising-looking ones into the bag, licking my dry lips distractedly. Did Daryl have any of that distilled water left, I wondered? Or perhaps there was a cafeteria or break room nearby - God, I'd take it piss-warm right now, I was just so damn _thirsty_ all of a sudden. A cough burst from the seam of my cracking lips.

Daryl and Tyreese had returned, their bags absolutely stuffed to the gills. They'd been raiding a store cupboard just down the hall. "How'd you do?" Bob asked.

"Bags, tubes, clamps, connectors. Everything on the list." For the first time in hours, Tyreese actually sounded like himself. Calmer.

"What about y'all?"

I handed Bob a few more bottles of pills, rattling as I shoved them into his bag and placed my own, quite full, next to it on the worktop. "Yeah," he replied, glancing over his shoulder to where Michonne was doing a final survey. "We got it all."

"Yeah, we're good," she agreed, grabbing her bag from the table and nudging mine a little closer.

Across the room, Daryl smiled, just slightly. We'd done what we'd set out to do, and we had a reliable, large vehicle to bring back to the prison, as well as an ample stock of meds. I caught the turn of his lips and grinned in return, because things were okay, things were going to be okay, _Brandy_ was going to be okay. "All right," he said, grabbing a few of the bags he and Tyreese had brought in. "Let's roll."

But things could never be so simple. We could never just simply have a win. Not even that day, of all days.

Daryl shone his flashlight around the corner, angling it through an interior window likely leading into another lab or classroom. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," he breathed, skirting around the doorway. Within, two or three walkers milled about aimlessly. Hurriedly, as quietly as we could manage, we shuffled further down the hall, hoping they had not noticed the light - or the slightly-ajar door which might lead to their room.

"Up ahead." Michonne pointed to an open door at the furthest end of the corridor. From behind us, snarls and growls bloomed fast and furious.

It was a storage room, likely for animal patients or specimens - filled to the brim with empty cages and tanks I decided I shouldn't look at too closely. Michonne flicked on her flashlight, for there were no windows here. The echo of the walkers' enthusiasm echoed from the corridor beyond, as Bob struggled to shut the door behind us. "Hey! Door's busted," he hissed, pressing his fists against the hinges, as though that would accomplish anything.

"Hold up." Together, he and Daryl tried to adjust it, finally managing to squeeze it into the frame so that only a thin sliver of light could get through. Then, they piled up a few of the cages against it, adding some tanks for extra weight. If the walkers did realize we'd come through there (not likely, I thought dimly), they might be able to push it open, but that would require some higher-order thinking on their part. At the very least, it would buy us another few minutes.

Michonne scanned her light about the room, illuminating a small green sign, at the far end of the room, promising a stairwell. "There," she said, gesturing ahead. A scratch crawled up my throat, likely from the dusty cages, but I bit the cough back.

We were just a couple of feet away when the first walker jumped from the shadows, grasping tight to Tyreese's arm. Luckily, he'd had his hammer at the ready, and brought it down several times on its skull, crushing it to a bloody pulp against a silvery stack of cages. My head pounded in time with his blows.

Two doors blocked the stairwell, their handles bound in chains. From the other side, dead, scabby hands reached out longingly for our flesh, and I cringed away from the smell, the rotting stench you'd think I would have just become used to by now. But nausea unfurled once more, and I nearly bowed over with the urge to be well and truly sick this time.

"How many?" Daryl asked, breathing heavily next to me.

Michonne shook her head. "I can't tell."

 _Shit_.

Based on the wet _thumps_ coming from behind us, without glancing back I could gather that the makeshift barricade was beginning to fail. "We can take 'em!" Tyreese said desperately, that old ferocity back in his voice, chilling me despite the oppressive heat of the room.

"No!" Bob cried. "They're infected. Same as at the prison."

 _Shit. Shit._

"We fire at 'em, get their blood on us, breathe it in. We didn't come all this way to get sick!"

The darkness, the scant illumination provided by the swing of just two flashlights, made it too difficult to navigate the unfamiliar terrain. Low, rasping moans seemed to be emanating from every possible direction now, and fear coiled tight and ready to strike in my stomach as I braced my knife under the wrist holding my gun. It was a small enough piece that the kickback shouldn't be too bad, but I didn't plan on firing it unless absolutely necessary. A knife could be retrieved during a fight; bullets were a finite, noisy resource.

"How do we know the ones in there aren't any different?" Tyreese growled, indicating the stairwell path, which - despite obviously playing host to a rather large group of walkers, still seemed our best chance. If we went back, we might encounter the same number of sick walkers, and we'd still be moving further into the building. Right now, we just needed to get the hell outside. A stairwell was the most promising direction leading to an exterior door.

"We don't," Michonne conceded, shining her flashlight at the gaping crack between the chained doors, trying to look for the telltale signs of sickness in the walkers: bleeding from the eyes.

Daryl shoved a small table onto its side so that the legs were stuck up in the air. He twisted with both hands until one popped off. The ringing whisper of Michonne's blade encouraged to whirl around, to ignore the steady approach of moaning bodies behind us. "Well," he said, aiming the leg at the chained handles. "It's gotta change sometime. Ready?"

"Do it!"

They surged forward, a hungry wave. Michonne swept down her sword, Bob fired off a shot, I dug my knife deep into the temple of one, swearing as my gun clattered from my grip with the effort of it. My hands slapped the floor fruitlessly in search of it. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"Riley!" Daryl pressed the cool kiss of metal into my hands, and I left the knife behind as we pushed through the doorway and headed up the staircase beyond, death hot on our heels. Two flights we dashed up, emerging to the brightness of an empty corridor with plenty of windows. But as we entered, we realized two things: the horde behind us had grown, and there was no goddamn exit on this floor. At the end of the hall was another door marked _Stairs_ , but it was firmly locked.

Bob and I pulled down a few chairs and desks stacked nearby, but they would do very little to dissuade the oncoming walkers. Tyreese reached around me to wrest the fire extinguisher from the wall to my right; I watched as he flung it towards the wide windows at the very end of the hallway, with an abrupt warning to "Get down!"

The glass shattered, raining down to the floor below. "Go on, move it!" Daryl ordered. Tyreese reached up to help Michonne mount the wide sill, Daryl grabbing her hand to tug her up beside him. "Jump down to the walkway below."

"Go, go, go! Riley, come on, girl!"

He wrapped his hand tight around mine; Tyreese pushed hard at the small of my back. Below, there was about a three foot gap I would need to jump over; we were only about ten, maybe twelve feet off the ground. "I -"

"Come on, girl! Move!"

I hit the gravel littered on the surface of the structure with a cry; pain shooting up my cramping legs. "Oh, hell," I muttered, scrambling to my feet, grabbing the grocery bag and the few bottles that had spilled from it with the force of my hit. Daryl landed like a cat beside me, helped me to shove a couple back in.

Bob emerged last, but overestimated his landing, and he toppled to the edge of the walkway, his bag tumbling over the side. I crawled over to see if I could help, but the hungry snarls of the snapping jaws below convinced me otherwise. One had grabbed onto the canvas bag in Bob's hand, but he was still resolutely trying to pull it away. "Bob, let it go," Michonne said quickly.

"Let it go, man," Tyreese added. "Just let it go."

We pulled and tugged him away from the edge, away from the grasping hands of the growing horde below. "Let go of the bag, man." Daryl pulled hard at his right leg, until finally, Bob managed to wrench it loose, and it flew back and hit the walkway with a plinking sort of thud, one reminiscent of glass. I hoped none of the medicine bottles had shattered.

Daryl stepped over to investigate the source of the sound as the rest of us struggled to our feet. An elegant bottle of something too fancy for me to name had rolled out from the canvas; Daryl picked it up, fixed a cold stare on Bob. "You got no meds in your bag?" he asked. "Just this?"

I watched Daryl's face, not Bob's, because it was the former's expression which caused a streak of fear to snake up my spine. His hair, darkened with sweat, had fallen over one eye slightly, obscuring further the sense of familiarity I had developed with the planes of his face. This was fury. Cold and quick as a summer squall, brewing before me. I shivered.

Beside me, Bob breathed heavily.

"You shoulda kept walking that day." Daryl's arm stretched back to toss the bottle into the fray below, but Bob cut him off.

"Don't," he said, one hand stealing to the holstered gun at his hip.

Michonne's eyes widened in disbelief, flickering over to my face - _Can you believe this, kid_?

Yes, yes, I could.

A craving that scraped deep inside you? Clouding judgement? Narrowing your focus to a single entity, a single moment of reprieve? Leaving you raw and vacant in its wake? Yes, yes, I could believe that.

Daryl strode over, rage rolling from his skin so thick I could taste it on the air, stepping so intimidatingly close to Bob that he nudged him back a bit, so close that Bob had no choice but to look down, down at his feet. "D," I croaked, entreatingly, one hand coming to rest on his arm. "Please." He ignored me.

In one swift movement, he removed the gun from Bob's holster, then grabbed at his collar with the booze still in hand. "Just let it go, Daryl," Tyreese interjected. "The man's made his choice. Nothing you can do about it. Just gotta let it go."

"D." My voice rose barely above a whisper, my hand slid into the crook of his elbow.

"I didn't want to hurt nobody. It was just for when it gets quiet."

My head throbbed, splitting, my skin was on fire. "D…"

Daryl shoved the bottle into Bob's chest, narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice to a growl that I swore I could hear rumbling in my own chest. "Take one sip, and when those meds get into our people, I will beat your ass into the ground. You hear me?"

Why were the trees spinning? " _Daryl_!"

The voice was not mine.

Flames burst and rose on my skin; a comet streaked through my veins and I could not bear it one second longer, so many times these past days or months or even years, I could no longer tell, I had bitten back the shattering cough and I had denied the fulsome press of these aches, and now I spun with the trees, falling like rain into his grip, into his arms, and he pulled me away, curses hot on my ear, my name a bleeding staccato from his lips, searing my skin with a brand of fear I had known only a handful of times.

* * *

Someone had left towels in the back of the van. Michonne used these to build a bed of sorts for me, and Tyreese, having carried me since he and Daryl had managed to ease my limp, aching body from the walkway, nestled me within their thin, scratchy embrace. He balled up the hoodie, retrieved from the backseat, to lay beneath my head. "There you go, sweetheart," he said, fully himself again.

Bob made me swallow an aspirin and some water. "Hershel can reassess her back at the prison," came his dull diagnosis. "We don't have time for me to set up an IV. We've got to get moving." His fingers brushed damp hair from my forehead. "Why didn't you say anything, Riley?"

I did not answer.

I was aware of their movements, as they tucked the bags of medication and equipment into the van; as Tyreese and Bob slid in through the side door. I heard Michonne offer to drive, caught snatches of a conversation between her and Daryl. A streak of pain shot through my head; the aspirin had yet to do its work.

"Hang on, Imma sit with her. Shouldn't be alone."

He crawled in behind me, reaching up to close the trunk door as gently as possible. He tucked his legs around my body, tugged my torso further up so that I was flush to his chest, my head lolling against his shoulder. The van lurched forward, and I shifted, a noise of distress slipping from my lips before I could stop it. "Hey, you're okay, you're gonna be okay," he murmured, rubbing his hands down my arms. "You're gonna be okay, girl."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, a secret against his skin. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

It slithered from me. My ignorance. My foolishness. How I had assumed the symptoms belonged to the aftershocks of the wine, the nightmare of Karen and David in the prison yard. I had assigned the cramps and the aches to the run through the forest; the headache to the stress and dehydration. The cough to dust and dirt. I choked on the darkness of it now - I had brought the illness with me, brought it right into the car and the van. Daryl and I had shared a bottle of water.

He shushed away my apologies, stroking small circles onto my arms as we drove away, houses and buildings giving way to large stretches of green, open fields. "Don't be mad at Bob," I said softly, dropping one hand to his thigh; the aspirin was beginning to work now - my own limbs were drowsy and loose. He did not jerk away from my touch, innocent as it was.

"Huh," he grunted.

"Don't be." I turned slightly in his grip, turned so that my breath ghosted against his jaw as I spoke. An actual damn shiver ran through him. _Well, shit. First time we're close as hell and I feel like I could puke at any moment._ "Don't be, Daryl. He can't help it. We're the same. We don't like the quiet. You didn't get mad at me."

"That's different. You're a kid. A sick kid."

"I'm not a kid. I haven't been a kid in a long time, D."

He looked away, out the window, into the green. "Don't be mad," I said again, softly.

I think I dozed. Slipped into hot, uneasy dreams of scabby hands writhing in the doorway, of panic blooming bright and searing in my chest. When I jerked awake, the van was still moving - Tyreese and Michonne were engaged in quiet speculation about our arrival time; I heard nothing from Bob.

My hand was still on Daryl's leg; his left hand was still rubbing an endless pattern onto the skin of my upper arm. In his other, he fiddled with the jasper stone. "Can I see?" I asked hoarsely.

He slipped it into my hand, and I thumbed the smooth surface of it idly. Pale green and shimmering; a mermaid's treasure, I thought sleepily. "It's so beautiful. Will you get me one sometime?"

"Shit, Riley, you get better, and I'll get you anything you want."

I laughed, and it echoed in his chest and mine. "Why, Mr Dixon, you're gonna give a girl some wild ideas."

"Shut up." Arms tightened around me, and I returned the hand to his thigh, nuzzling my face a little higher against his shoulder, deciding that, while barriers had given way, I might as well enjoy the perks of his openness. Of course, I had no desire to push him further than he was willing to go, so I kept alert for any tensing, for the slightest pulling away from my body. But there was nothing. If anything, he relaxed into me just as I did into him. We were going home. I would be fine. Brandy would be fine. No one in this van would get sick because of me. Everything would be okay.

He was cool water around me, rushing over my skin. Knotted muscles gave way beneath the massage of his gentle current. He was a river. An impossible river with an oceanic tide, pulling me far away from this dangerous shore.


	29. The Bitterness

_**Chapter XXIX: The Bitterness**_

I am four.

Childish and sweet, the baby of the family, a surprise too far into my parents' careers to warrant any more life changes. I am raised in moments by kind women who kiss their own daughters goodbye in the morning and come to bring me up.

I am seven.

Fierce and cunning, my world is built upon stories and dragons. My brothers and I fight long and hard, and love deeper than we know how to say. I am dirt and scraped knees.

I am twelve.

Not the dainty and polite girl my parents had hoped for; instead, I retreat further into my own mind, even as I battle on dusty green fields against other girls taller and stronger than me. I am rust-coloured water, swirling into a drain.

I am sixteen.

Books and paper, inky fingertips as I scan the world for news and history-making. I am quieter now, less fierce, more polished. I paint my face and I brush my hair now, looking to fall in love. The dusty green fields call me still, and the girls trade my name in whispers.

I am twenty-one.

Unsteady and unsure, I move down a path untread, and I fall in love amidst death and dying. I have shed tears now, more searing and more pure than I have ever cried before. I have shed blood now, and the thought of it haunts me, eats at me, spits at me from dark corners - my own personal monster under the bed, the ghosts dogging my steps.

I am twenty-three.

Aching and hot, I allow myself to be bundled from one man's arms to another's, longing for my feet to touch solid earth. There is a bed beneath me now, and snow in my veins.

* * *

"It should start working soon," Hershel said gently, smoothing a hand over my forehead. "Her fever's already going down. She doesn't seem to have as strong a hit as the others."

"Why?" A low, husky growl met my ears, and I struggled to blink my eyes open, wanting to see him, to thank him.

"Not sure. She's a tough one, though, I know that much." Hershel shifted in his seat; the soft scrape of wood told me he'd pushed back the chair. "But she may have a slightly stronger immune system than the others, or it's possible that her time outside the prison with you and Michonne exposed her to more germs and helped her fight this off." The light sounds of plastic and glass getting acquainted emanated from somewhere near my right, but the pillow beneath my head was so cool, so soft, and my eyelids were still so damn heavy.

"I'm gonna stay with her a while."

Hershel sighed. "Daryl, she needs her sleep."

 _No, let him stay._

"Won't wake her up. Just in case she needs something."

If I'd had enough energy to do so, I think I would have smiled.

"You're a good friend, Daryl. She's lucky to have you."

Everything - every noise, every scent, every nearby movement - seemed to be coming to me through a sort of haze, nudging through a thick fog of disorientation and dissonant thoughts. The skin on the back of my hand was tight, too tight, and I stretched it out across the desert of blankets at my side, hoping he would hold it, hoping I could open my eyes.

I slept.

Swimming through dreams and memory, racing through years in the space of mere minutes. When I woke, my tongue was flypaper in my mouth, settling awkwardly, and I finally managed to creak one eyelid open, and then the other, pinching them both closed again when the pressure of the air proved too much. "Hey," Daryl said softly.

"Hey." I swept a sleepy gaze across the expanse of this unfamiliar cell. The bunks were arranged on the wall opposite to their situation in _our_ cell, so I deduced we must indeed be in A-block. Someone had changed my clothes: I was in loose sweatpants now, and a t-shirt I had never worn before. Hoping he hadn't been there when I was changed, my eyes found Daryl. Pale and strained, he offered a small smile from his chair next to my bed. "You good?"

"Am I good?" He rubbed a hand over his chin; it was so quiet in the surrounding area I could actually hear the scratch of his beard against his palm. "How you feeling?"

"Hollow. Like somebody's scooped out my insides." I struggled sit up, managing only to rock back on my elbows, my legs suddenly jelly. Uncertainly, eyes full of question, he reached out, easing me around to lean back against the cool concrete of the wall so that I could face him. "Other than that, just fine. Thanks."

The meds had kicked in quickly, he explained, gesturing to the back of my hand, where a band-aid and gauze concealed a now-aching hole. "Hershel said you're doing good."

If only I could feel it. Certainly this emptiness was a welcome reprieve from the scorching heat and pain of my feverish state out on the run, but there was also something lonely about it, as though I'd transcended one state and moved into another, completely on my own. Talking might help, I thought. Ideally, talking to Brandy might help the most, or someone else who'd been sick. I opened my mouth, preparing to ask if he could get me down to whichever cell she was staying in, but he beat me to the punch: "Why didn't you say anything, out on the road?"

"You know why," I said with a heavy sigh, fisting the blanket in my lap. "I thought it was because of the wine, and the shock and all that. I didn't know it was the flu. God, Daryl, do you think I would have stayed around you guys if I'd known that?"

He chewed on his thumb, thought for a moment before replying. "Don't mean that. I just meant...why didn't you tell us you didn't feel good? We coulda stopped, coulda let you stay in the van or something."

 _Why didn't you tell_ me _?_ Was that what he was really asking? He, who I had begun confiding so much in - why hadn't I told him? Tugged on his sleeve and told him about the ache behind my eyes, the fire on my skin? I appraised him then, sitting ill at ease in an uncomfortable chair, by the bedside of a girl to whom his connection was tenuous and undefinable at best. What did exist between us? My breath had made him shiver in the back of that van; he had not moved away from my hand on his thigh. Touches were growing in frequency between us now, and the petulance in his voice as he asked me "why" told me more than his actual question. Why had I not entrusted him with my well-being? Why had _he_ not picked up on my discomfort?

"I'm sorry." I tried to muster a smile, a reassuring one. "Wasn't thinking straight. Might have been the fever."

Daryl nodded, then looked down at his hands where they now dangled, clasped between his knees. "Okay."

Awkwardness had joined us in the cell. It wasn't as if we weren't used to that, of course, but I didn't want it there right now. Right now, I wanted to let him know how much his actions had meant to me, what _he_ had come to mean to to me. You see, near-death experiences (which we encounter on a regular basis) tend to toss things into perspective. Looking at Daryl sitting there, in the aftermath of my illness (which could have killed me, I reminded myself firmly), the desire to have him understand my gratitude became overwhelming, growing as heated and insistent as the fever had been. "Thank you," I said lamely, not knowing how to truly put it into words. "For sitting in the back with me, and for...for showing me your scars, and for...for…" I coughed, choking on dehydration and emotion. He started, hands gripping my shoulders in a vain attempt to ease me through the spasms.

"Here." Daryl lifted a glass of lukewarm water to my lips, and the gesture was so sweet, so private, so ostensibly uncharacteristic that I wanted to cry. _Just for me_ , I thought dimly, allowing him to lay me back down upon the pillow, allowing myself to slip back into the easier embrace of an anonymous sleep, rather than this curious, ambiguous space.

* * *

"So tell me, baby cakes, is it love?"

Chloe lounges on a prison bunk across from me, hair shining and makeup glittering at her eye - she looks ready to go out, clad in something frothy and shimmering. All quite out of place in my grey world.

"Love?"

I'm sitting with my back to the wall again, but I don't remember doing so. Daryl had helped me lay down, hadn't he? And where had he gone?

"Yeah, love." She swings her legs to a sitting position, smiling. "You know, a pleasant emotion usually accompanied by a desire to commit and express that affection in creative ways? Write a song, do a dance, pay fifteen dollars to go see and a movie and make out in the back?"

I laugh, and it's a heady thing, a better drink than I've had in a long, long time. Just to laugh at something stupid. But I don't know how to answer her question. "We've only been out a couple of times," I say, amusement dying on my lips. "And I don't really know that much about him."

Chloe stands, and the world shifts as she crosses to her college-issued desk near the window, a desk that shouldn't be in the prison, and she rummages about the surface until she finds a slim tube. With an expert flick of her wrist, she paints her lips with stars. "So? He's cute, right? Sweet?"

Two truths suspend in my mind, two pairs of eyes and two stories, and I try to remember which one we're talking about. One is sweet, yes, and cute; the other strong and kind. I open my mouth to ask her, but she's already turned, joining me on my bed, the scents of lavender and coconut oil tangling pleasantly, familiarly on the air between us. "You can't ever know someone completely, Rye," she murmurs, leaning her head upon my shoulder. "There will always be new things to learn, surprises, all that stuff. How does he make you feel?"

 _Disoriented. Cared for. Aflame._

"Good," she says, though I didn't think I'd said the words aloud. "Good. That's some good shit right there. Hold on to that, work with that."

But I have another fear, another secret, and I whisper it to life in the air of our room, the air of this cell, memory and dream colliding in the strangest feeling I've ever known: "What if it doesn't last?"

In the memory, I had been thinking of summer. Of weeks apart, on our separate paths. In the dream, I think of death. A day, a month, a year? How can I bare my own heart, ripe for the breaking, to a man who may leave to where I cannot follow?

"Is that enough of a reason not to enjoy the moment?"

There hasn't been much enjoyment yet. There has been anger, yes, and mistrust, and small touches that leave me wanting. Shivers. His hands on my shoulders. The water against my lips, and the tenderness of his care. Subtle flutterings of something special to come.

No, no, no - it's not nearly enough of a reason.

* * *

I was so damn hungry. The smell of chicken and excessive sodium entreated me from the haze of that weird-ass dream of conflating recollections and present worries. My eyes, stunningly crusted from sleep, blinked open to the wooden slats of the bunk above me, and dark hair at my periphery. "Chloe?" I asked, incredulously. _What the hell had Hershel given me_?

"Who?"

In the chair that Daryl had vacated, Rick now sat, a bowl of soup in hand and a sad smile playing about his mouth. "You with me, Riley?"

We'd had some time together, Rick and I, in the months since my return. My work in supplies earned us weekly meetings and check-ins, and there had been the morning after my fight with Daryl, when he had levelled a few home truths in my direction. Quite paternally so, I thought now, accepting the bowl of soup gratefully. The salt and stale spice slid down my parched throat easily, and I could feel myself brightening at the warmth.

Yes, we'd had some time together, but not enough. When I spoke to Rick, I think half our conversation was still paused in those moments in the woods, after he'd saved my life and I'd walked away from the home he offered. That guilt tended to snuggle in beside us as we spoke, whether it was about beans and pigs or life and death.

"Feeling better?" God, I was sick to death of people asking me that. I was alive, wasn't I? That seemed pretty well all the best I could hope for, the highest I could reach.

I nodded, shovelling in another spoonful of soup. "Yeah, fine."

He leaned forward, arms tensing with the effort, eyes grey and earnest. "I mean it, Riley. Are you okay?"

There was something else there, pressing against the seam of his resolve. Something he did not want to give life to, to invite there with us. Something unpleasant. "I'm okay, really," I said slowly. "Hershel gave me a shit-ton of meds and I've been resting. What's going on?" A light sweat broke out on my forehead, I could feel it. Panic rising in my mouth, bitter as gall.

Rick could see it, too, read it in my sudden, jerky movements, dropping the spoon and settling the bowl down on the floor. Abruptly, I found myself poised for a problem, ready for flight. "Rick, what is it?"

But he wouldn't say, and he was so damn good at that, being tight-lipped as hell. He eased me back down against the pillow, soothed my questions with a hand across my brow, brushing away my damp bangs with a soft entreaty to go back to sleep, to calm down, that everything was going to be alright.

* * *

I did not sleep. Instead, I waited for him to go, for the sounds of his boots to retreat far enough down the corridor outside my cell so that I could reach down and finish the soup. There was something going on, I knew that well enough. Something Rick didn't want to tell me. But the fog of hunger and medication had rendered me incapable of making the necessary leaps; I had to content myself with sitting upright, scanning the cell, wondering dimly why no one was around. Hershel hadn't even come to check on me, not since Daryl's visit.

A lonely kind of ache clawed at me now, the same way I'd felt when Daryl had asked how I was. Once, when I was a kid, I'd broken my arm pretty badly in a ballet incident, of all things (and by that, I mean that I was showing off in the bathroom during rehearsal and had slipped in a puddle of what I'd sincerely hoped was water). My dad hadn't left my side through the long evening, not even when the doctor came in to explain they'd have to put a pin in my arm and I'd promptly thrown up at the thought of them simply sticking it through the skin and hoping it nestled where it needed to be.

I'd faded in and out of consciousness, but my father was always there, reading some ancient magazine and holding my stuffed owl at the ready, just casually enough so that I could grab if it need be, but also projecting the notion that I didn't actually need it, because I was nine, you know?

But the night had grown in length and pain and soon my dad was right there in the hospital bed with me, the owl in my arms and myself a comma of fear and agony right beside him. "S'okay, Riley Jane, it's okay," he hummed in my ear.

 _Daddy_.

I'd called him that for the last time at twenty, I remembered now. Home on winter break and sick with food poisoning, he'd come in to the bathroom to hold my hair back as I wept and vomited in equal measure. "Daddy, this sucks, this goddamn sucks," I'd sobbed.

One hand stroking my hair, the other reaching optimistically for the flusher, he'd smiled down at me. "I don't like that word."

"Sorry." I'd never cursed so badly in front of one of my parents before. If my stomach had not been trying to break up with me in the most dramatic way possible, I might have been embarrassed.

"Because," he said, handing me a washcloth, "you know, 'sucks' is pretty goddamn uncouth."

Mourning had become a costly luxury. We had little time for funerals; sometimes the body walked away before we could say a proper goodbye. My family existed now in the dim recesses of my mind, trotting out in the liminal moments between waking and sleep, when my guard had been let down. Or when I was hurting the most.

For the first time, I tried to imagine my parents here, in the prison. My mother, interacting with Rick - she'd like him, I thought. But she'd worry about him. And Carl.

My father would be positively enchanted with Michonne and her poetic, beautiful ferocity.

They'd both be horrified at the thought of me sharing a cell with Daryl.

* * *

"Hey, kid." Michonne's voice was woodsmoke and winter on the air; as she stepped into the cell, pulled up the same chair, closer than either Rick or Daryl had sat, the memories of our time together, with Andrea and without, came floating in alongside her.

They stung.

She'd brought bad news with her, too. I could tell in the twist of her lips, the rue in her eyes. There was something she did not want to tell me.

"How are you?"

 _One more time. Ask me one more time_ , I thought. _Ask me one more time, and I'm going to give you a real answer. Tired. Sick. Confused. Achingly lonely._

Before, friendship had not always come easily to me. Connecting with others required honesty and patience, concepts that I often struggled with. Not that I was a pathological liar, by any means - it's just that I found it difficult to be myself, to simply act without fear of judgement. Growing up in a privileged community wherein your grades, your appearance, your deportment - even the music you choose to listen to or the activities you participate in - can determine your fate in subtle, biting ways, well, that changes you. Or rather, it forces you to moderate your own existence.

I hated ballet. Part of me hated field hockey, too. But those activities held a greater significance than I could understand. The friends that I made via those experiences were fairweather at best, because we were all playing the same game, the same role: the ideal daughter, the acceptable teenage girl. I carved myself, chipping away and polishing where need be, because I was desperate to succeed in ways that would endear to me the world I had not chosen to be born into.

And then came Chloe.

At eighteen, I made a choice for myself. I wanted warmth and sun and something new, so I chose Atlanta on an uncharacteristic whim. Thankfully, my mother and father were about as acceptably unconventional as you could get in our world, and thought it an intriguing selection. For the first time, I was able to present myself to a community in ways that I was in charge of determining (for the most part). And it fucking terrified me.

Chloe became my guide, of sorts. She possessed an innate sense of comfort with who she was, and so I simply followed as she pressed on. Her forthright self-acceptance forced me in turn to stop policing myself so much; she gave me permission to be me, and for some strange reason, loved me for it.

And then she died. Perhaps because I was too much myself, or not enough - hadn't quite worked that yet.

With her death, I had assumed I would lose the ability to feel anything other than an urge to survive. Surprising then, had been the blossoming affection I had come to know for my family of discordant strangers. My definition of love and my capacity to experience it had been changed, wrought anew by challenge and danger. And within the confines of that new definition, I was changed, too.

Brandy reminded me of her. Of Chloe. My bond with Michonne had been forged in those cold winter days, death stalking our heels; her strength was my aspiration. But Brandy was a return, an indulgence in the fast-paced wit of those old interactions with Chloe. Once again, I did not have to posture or feint; I could simply be myself, laughing as I used to, joking as I used to.

Those two girls had demanded of me only myself, unadorned.

The woman before me now demanded a strength I was only half-sure I could muster.

"I'm sorry," Michonne whispered, leaning close and entwining a hand with mine, anchoring me to this pain. "I'm so sorry."

Death was fast and quiet, coming to Brandy in the space between dreaming breaths. Elliott's weak, fading hand had been wrapped about hers, so that at least she had not been wholly alone. "Fever just burned right through her," Michonne said. "She was gone while we were still on the road, probably about the time we were at the gas station. There was no way we could have gotten the meds to her in time, kid."

Her words were kind and generous, and a true sign that she knew me well. But guilt weighs more and moves faster than pity, and I was already deep in the throes of a new brand of it. It surged vivid and red within me, blinding me to little more than the swirling storm of thoughts in my head, the possibility that if I'd moved faster, if I'd seen the herd sooner in the car, if I'd caught Bob with the alcohol before Daryl had, if I'd not been sick at all….

 _Ifs_ make for long moments, for isolation in company. Michonne sat with me for a while, repeating the mantra that there was nothing I could have done, nothing _we_ could have done. That it was quick and painless; that she'd died in her sleep and how many of us could hope for that now? I couldn't cry, not until she'd left, convinced that I'd fallen back into an uneasy sleep.

I pressed a fist to my mouth to quell the sobs, but he heard them anyways. He didn't pull me into his arms this time, not like he had in the van. But he slid the chair closer and gave me his hand. I tugged it higher, resting it against my chest, so that it rose and fell with the shallow, panicked breaths of the recently bereaved.

* * *

I am twenty-three.

Heartbroken and confused, I fall asleep in the quiet presence of a man I may be in love with, and can't bear to lose. I'm bitterly peaceful now, safe within the confines of an uncertain affection, and a hard-won home.

* * *

 _Thank you to those of you who have reviewed / left comments. They mean so much to me, and I so appreciate you taking the time to do so :)_


	30. Too Far Gone

**Chapter XXX: Too Far Gone**

As far as opening lines go, Tolkien had the absolute best. What the hell is a hobbit? Why does it live in a hole in the ground? Where are we going with this, bud? Mystery and magic, all in one. You read that line, and you know you're about to go on the best sort of adventure.

That morning, though, the only adventure I was interested in was of the literary bent. The past few weeks converged upon my mind and body as a narrow but focused wave of stress, exhaustion, illness, and now grief. Spending the morning flipping through the pages of a childhood favourite seemed like a luxury I could be permitted to indulge in, though the self-consciousness of simply _sitting_ was relentlessly needling.

Rick came by to visit again, as did Julia, and even Maggie poked her head in to offer her condolences and let me know that Glenn was getting better. Mired in fever and flu, I had not even known he was sick, but relief swept through me just the same. As did a profound sense of mortification, as I watched noses wrinkle in distaste at the sharp tang of my unwashed limbs. Sweat and misery had done what they could to fill the cell with a miasma of sickness, and before long, I found myself craving the cool reprieve of a shower. The privacy of a small place to cry, where my sobs could be concealed by running water? Yeah, that sounded pretty damn good.

I wore Brandy's death like a scar - just as much a part of me as the old rips down my legs, the endless patterns of my stumbling progress into this dying world, emblazoned on my skin, the deepest memory you could hold. No amount of scrubbing would take that away. Her blood was on my hands now, too. Her ghost dogging my steps, just like Chloe, and RJ, and Andrea. No matter what any of them said, I knew that if I'd been faster, braver, tougher, Brandy would be alive. If I'd spotted the walker and the herd earlier, Daryl could have pulled back, turned around sooner.

The bed was soft, and warm, and my body was so, so weak, scraped raw by the sickness. I was unsure how much time had passed since the van, since I'd lain there in Daryl's arms. All I knew was that I was home, at least, and people were going to get better. _I_ was going to get better.

Shifting up on the bunk, I pushed the storm of hair from my eyes, feeling around for the dent of my pillow at the back of my head, knowing that I should find a good shampoo downstairs to sort out the knots from sweaty tossing and turning. Shit. I could probably use another quick trim.

Brandy.

She'd cut my hair. After Daryl's well-meaning hack job months before, Brandy had started taking it upon herself to give me some sense of style and shape. Running my hands through it now, I could feel hers tangled up at the nape of my neck, as she laughed at the tiny jerks of my shoulders. "Ticklish?" she'd asked.

Our friendship had been fast, blooming from the smallest, most inane of interactions into something good. And I would miss it, would yearn for it. But already my heart had begun to calcify against the price of love in the world as it was. I knew that there would be more loss; danger lurked around every corner, and there was no way to avoid it. If I was going to form relationships in my life, however truncated it may prove to be, I was going to have to simply accept that people would die. That didn't mean that I couldn't love them - it just meant that I was going to have to be prepared for the end.

But really, I reasoned, struggling to extricate myself from the comfort of the bed (my entire body felt rubbery), life had always been that way. You lived, you loved, you stepped onto a ledge of heartbreak and loss and grand, grand adventures, and you hoped that if you did fall, you fell somewhere pleasant. Flung yourself into a waiting, worthwhile embrace. It was a gamble every damn time: you could trip, you could stumble, you could let go too soon or not soon enough. And from the cast of those choices, a life was carved, complete with details and accents in the forms of family and friends and lovers and mistakes. Brandy was a part of me now; my friendship and affection for her, as brief as our time had been, would come to define me in new ways - just as much as Chloe had and Daryl did.

Far off the distance - or so I hoped - there would be more. Someone I could laugh with again. Someone to cut my hair and remind me of old songs.

But that didn't take away the hurt.

Hell no.

* * *

Four times I tried to stand, and four times I fell back down into the feathery seduction of ennui. It was so much easier to just lay there, passive and healing. I wanted a shower, and more soup, and more company, and something to actually do, but sleep was okay, too. At least in dreams, things became anonymous. I floated in a lake, and I ran across a field, and I made the best damn Pop-Tarts I'd ever eaten in my life...and nothing could touch me. Nothing, until the gentle jostling of a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, sleepyhead? Feeling okay?" I blinked into consciousness, the phantom taste of strawberry still on my lips. Brown eyes, warm and kind, met mine and I could not help but smile. _Sasha_.

"Fine," I said with a good-natured groan, inching back up into a sitting position and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Sasha had pulled up the chair, a broad smile on her face. "You?"

She shrugged. "A little like my stomach doesn't belong to me anymore, but yeah, I'm good."

We chatted lightly, skirting around the bigger issues - my friend's death; the murder of two of our own - and lost ourselves for a few minutes in a calmer space. She asked if I'd eaten; I asked after Tyreese. "What's going on out there?" She stiffened at my question, leaning back slightly in the chair.

"Um...some tough stuff, I'm not gonna lie, Riley."

I bit my lip slightly, fisted the fusty sheets in one hand. Tough stuff. Death and dying. "Like what?"

We'd lost many, far too many - there were little girls now without a father; Dr S had succumbed; for every victory, every one of us snatched from the brink of death, there was another soul not as fortunate. Michonne and Hershel had been heading out to take care of some of the bodies; Sasha had crossed paths with the latter on her way down to visit me. "He said he'd look in on you later," she added, rubbing her hands idly against her jeans. "Once they...as soon as…"

I didn't want to know. Maybe - okay, definitely - that's selfish and immature of me, but hell, I've done it more times than I care to admit. In that moment, I pushed away the bad thoughts. I didn't want to think about the sick and the dead, what would have to be done to their bodies, buried in the ground or burned in the forest, anything to ensure the safety of the living. I just thought about a shower. Because that was better. Safer.

I rummaged around the floor of the cell for a change of clothes, but the ones I'd been wearing on the supply run had already been removed. The sweatpants and t-shirt were too loose and too tight in all the wrong places, and I knew I wanted something clean and fresh. I asked Sasha if she'd help me down to the clothing cells, and she obliged, slinging an arm around my shoulders to support the weight of my weary frame. Cold concrete chilled my bare feet, but I was so damn happy to be actually _moving_ that I couldn't complain.

As we rounded the corner of the cellblock, a question I had been subconsciously dying to ask bubbled to my lips: "Have you seen Daryl?"

I looked over to meet Sasha's small, knowing smile. She cleared her throat as she steered me further down the hall. "Yeah. For a minute or two. He was talking to Rick." I relaxed against her, tension leaching from my shoulders. He was okay. That was a normal thing for him to do - nothing weird had happened because I'd lain in his arms and held his hand while I cried. We were good. "Actually, I think they were arguing," she added thoughtfully.

"Oh, yeah?" I was distracted; we'd reached the first of the cells, and much to my dismay, any evidence of my careful and painstaking organization was long gone: boxes were strewn about the floor; a tangle of clothes lay atop the bunks, and I had to kick away several mismatched shoes to make my way to the hamper I had always kept my personal favourites in. "Shit." The top of that basket was gone and someone had made an absolute mess of the contents.

Sasha clucked her tongue in empathy, surveying the damage left behind by the panicked chaos of the past few days. "Things have been pretty mixed up," she explained apologetically. "People just...kind of freaked."

With her help, I managed to find a towel, a pair of jeans, a dark green t-shirt, and a black hoodie I'd once loved so much I'd actually hidden it under my bunk rather than risk seeing someone else wearing it. Although, with the warming weather, I'd decided to put it back in the communal cells and transition to spring and summer clothes. Today, though, I was still chilled enough from the aftershocks of my illness that the extra coverage would be much appreciated.

The prison was quiet - stunned, it seemed to me - and as we moved through the corridors towards the showers, we encountered only a couple of people. Weeks before, at that time of day, the hallways would have been bustling with people easing into their day and jobs, chatting to friends, discussing breakfast or trading gossip. The absence of all that simply raked at me, nearly bowing me over with renewed shock: people were dead, I reminded myself. People were gone.

Sasha was kind, and efficiently so; I'd known this for a while, but never felt it more so than when she helped guide my sleep-cramped arms through the sleeves of my shirt, flicked on the showerhead for me, tested the temperature of the water with her fingers. "Did you get a bra, too?" she asked idly, crossing the room to retrieve one of the few remaining bars of Irish Spring, my preferred soap. I nodded, gesturing to the stack of clothes on the bench.

"I'm good to go, I think."

But I didn't want _her_ to go. Judging from the fresh scent of her own clothes and hair, Sasha had already washed away the last vestiges of her sickness, and probably had things she'd rather be doing. Loneliness, though, had settled resolutely in the middle of my chest, so that when she moved towards the door, promising privacy and solitude, I couldn't help but let loose a little noise of objection. Those hours in that bed, dancing between sleep and tears, had left me wanting and raw. I just needed some more time. Some more distracting. If Sasha was there with me, Brandy - or rather, the space she left behind - couldn't be.

She turned when I stepped into the shower, shucking the sweatpants from my legs and ducking under the lukewarm stream with a sigh. And then she started to talk. About random things. Funny things. Her life back in Florida, before the world went to shit. Tyreese's ex-girlfriend, a woman named Izzie who had made his life absolute hell. Her childhood friends who had gotten together and opened an old-fashioned ice cream shop in the middle of town, drawing in tourists like flies to honey, convincing them that they _should_ pay an extra four dollars a pop to get the waffle cone - for the authenticity, of course.

As Sasha talked, I just listened, scrubbing myself free of the last grasping tendrils of disuse and illness, letting her words and companionship wash over me in just as relieving a cascade as the water. She talked about her mother, and the sunset she'd seen in Key West that had made her heart absolutely _clench_ with the pure, unadulterated beauty of it. She thought still of that sunset, she said ruefully, when the world got too heavy. When the walkers came in thick. When the smell of death rose up around her and she thought she'd never be whole ever again. She thought of that damn sunset.

My own thoughts, in those moments, went to blue eyes, not the pink and red watercolours of a day's farewell. In moments when I thought everything would be death and dying and pain for the rest of my life, I thought of a pair of blue eyes that sent shivers down my spine and ghostly, promising hands skittering across my skin, flames in their wake. _Tell me, baby cakes, is it love_? Was it love? Was it supposed to be this uncertain, this unsure? His hand on my chest, bound in my own grip, his mournful attendance to the symphony of my grief - was _that_ love?

I rubbed the shampoo from my hair, scarcely registering that, outside the shower, Sasha had fallen silent, lost perhaps in the swirl of her own recollections. Blindly, I reached out for my towel, and a warm hand met mine, soft cotton between our fingertips. "Thanks," I said, shaking my hair before scrubbing the towel over my legs and stomach. "And thanks for staying."

She turned around as I dressed, allowing me a few more minutes of accompanied privacy. Maybe, I thought briefly, she didn't want to be alone either. As I struggled to twist the bra around my wet skin (God, is there any torture more acute than putting on a sports bra post-shower?), a thought occurred to me, delayed and random now in the quiet of the showers - "Do you know what Daryl and Rick were arguing about?"

Sasha shrugged, straddling the bench with a resigned expression, scooching back slightly so I could join her. "Who knows? People are stressed, Riley, maybe they just...it could be something stupid. Nothing to worry about."

She was right; when tensions ran high, little things became big arguments pretty quickly. And both Daryl and Rick had a history of being combative - it wasn't unrealistic to assume they were arguing about coffee or something stupid like that. There was no real reason for me to be concerned.

"But you do worry, don't you?" Once I'd pulled myself through the t-shirt, I glanced over to see the quirk of a small smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. "You worry about him? Daryl?"

The teasing had abated somewhat over the past several months; Daryl's stern glares quickly put paid to the licentious speculation about the nature of our relationship. But that didn't change the fact that we were both unattached and living together in close confines, and that, well - I'm sure the story of us in the back of the van had spread by now. Daryl Dixon, who wouldn't touch anybody, had held me close for fifty miles.

Self-consciously, I ran my hands through my sopping hair, realizing that now was the worst possible time to ask for relationship advice. I mean, I was going to do it anyways, but it was the wrong time. "I just...I like him, Sasha. A lot."

"Yeah, I picked up on that at some point," she laughed. "The whole living together thing _might_ have been a clue."

I bit my lip against the rising taste of guilt: might as well keep going. "But isn't that...like, awful of me? To be worried about a crush at a time like this? I mean, Brandy _just_ died. Karen and David were murdered. Mika and Lizzie are orphans now, and I -"

Sasha interrupted me by placing her hands on my shoulders, forcing me to meet her gaze. "Don't take this the wrong way, okay? But people will always be dying. Bad things will always be happening to us. We can find safety and moments of peace, but in the long run, we're prey now, and the world is against us. If you have something like that, I'd be holding on to it. Telling him the truth."

Honesty, though, held the potential for rejection. As it was, whatever did lay between Daryl and I, nameless and protean, was kind of an enjoyable place to be, just for the moment. I liked lingering over the memory of the shiver that had run through him in the back of the van, just from my breath against his skin; my memory ran over the sound of his beard scratching against the palm of his hand - delight jolted through me at the thought of running my own fingers through it. There was potential in this liminal space, this will-we-won't-we world we'd crafted together, against our better judgement. And that potential was safe, because it could go either way: he could say yes, tell me he unequivocally that he felt the same way; or yeah, he could say no, and move out and on.

I was reluctant to sacrifice that safety, and told Sasha so. "But -"

"Nope," she interjected, shaking her head. "No way. You like him? You haven't seen the way he looks at you. I can't even describe it. I've never seen him relax so much as when you're around. You keep him calm, Riley. You make him happy. As happy as Dixon is likely to get. His problem is that he just doesn't know how to show it, or tell you."

My cheeks blazed with embarrassed pleasure, and I couldn't keep the grin from my lips. I made Daryl happy? I made Daryl _happy_. "Tell him," she repeated. "In a few days maybe, when all this is calmed down. But tell him, Riley. If you want something more with him, you've got to say something. And then you can enjoy whatever comes next. For however long you get it."

That could be a month, maybe a few more. A year or two. Decades. I didn't know; couldn't predict it, and that was only on the condition that he felt the way Sasha thought he did. Even before all of this, though, that kind of time wasn't guaranteed. People broke up, people lost their love - shit happened. My thoughts turned again to the theme they'd been running on earlier that morning, that life was just a careful inching journey along a thin ledge - walkers or no - and a dance of risk and chance. But it could be worth it. As safe as that transitional space was, an unlived relationship suspended between friendship and something more, moving outside of that space could prove to be fruitful and enjoyable in ways I could not yet imagine.

With RJ, I had belonged. With Chloe, I had belonged. My parents, my brothers, my family and friends. Brandy, too. I had belonged to someone, and there was a sweet surety in that state. We all craved such a feeling, in our own way: reaching out across the dark expanse of the world as it was, grasping the hand and heart and soul of another, in whatever way they would have us. Rick clasped tight to his children; Carol to her proteges; Maggie to her family and husband; and I to Daryl. And if what Sasha was telling me was true, he might have felt the same way about me.

"Brandy had you and Elliott," she said softly, watching my face run the gamut of the internal shifting of my emotions. "She spent her time in love and with friends. That's what you should have, too. And if that cranky son of a bitch is what you want, I say, go for it."

 _Go for it_. I tried to picture sitting down with Daryl this afternoon - no, in a few days' time. That would be better. Just sitting him down, preferably outside, so that the walls wouldn't close in upon us. And I'd say what? " _Hey, I think you're hot and your general lack of social finesse just makes my heart skip a beat. Wanna go steady?_ "

I flushed deeper just thinking about it. Sasha clocked it, and grinned even wider, squeezing my shoulders before standing. "Now, why don't we go get you some breakfast? We can talk more about your epic romance upstairs."

"Sasha," I groaned in exasperation, shuffling to my feet. "You won't say anything to anyone, will you? Not until...not until I'm ready?"

But whether she would or she wouldn't, I never found out: the epic _boom_ of a nearby explosion rocked through the foundations of the prison, and I stumbled back into the bench, hitting my shins and nearly losing my balance as I attempted to process what was happening. Sasha rapidly crossed to the main doors of the showers, poking her head out into the hall beyond, as though expecting an explanation to be strolling by. "What the hell?" I muttered, joining her at the door.

The scraping and scuffling of approaching footsteps sounded from down the corridor, down towards the Tombs, and, tense, we both retreated into the shadows, Sasha keeping one hand on the door - ajar just a crack - so that we could be sure who was passing us by. A familiar voice, deep and gruff, chased up the way; and Sasha and I both pushed out to greet Daryl, Rick, and Tyreese. The three of them bore similar expressions of newborn panic and confusion. "Where did that come from?" Sasha grabbed at her brother's arm as he tried to push her back into the room.

Tyreese just shook his head, while Daryl's attention turned to me. "What the fuck are you doing out of bed?" he asked roughly, hand wrapping about my wrist - not harshly, just firmly.

I mumbled something about a shower, but he was already stamping out directions for my next moves, as Tyreese and Rick shot down the corridor, presumably heading for the yard outside. "We're gonna go check this out. You head up to the kitchen, wait for directions, okay? If it's...if it's bad, and we need to escape, the plan is to get everybody on the school bus and then we head out."

"Daryl, I -"

" _Please_." Those blue eyes levelled to mine, shining with an emotion he was struggling to articulate. We both were. "Riley. Just do it, please."

"Come on!" Tyreese called over his shoulder as, up ahead, they rounded the corner. "Daryl!"

He released my wrist, shifting his crossbow into both his hands, ready to fire at the first sign of an enemy. Was that who was outside? An enemy? But who would come at us with such initial aggression? Who would -

 _Oh, shit_.

"You hear me, Riley?"

I did. Of course I did, and I knew his logic. This wasn't about coddling me or treating me like a little kid - I was recovering from an illness, I was weak because of that, and I was unarmed. I could be more useful during an evacuation procedure than I would be actually fighting. But that didn't mean I wasn't scared. It didn't mean I wasn't worried.

 _Tell me, baby cakes, is it love_?

Yeah, I'm pretty damn sure.

I followed him and Sasha down the hall, and before we parted, before I turned towards the kitchens and they readied to burst out into sunlight - we'd caught up with Tyreese and Rick by this point, who hadn't made it to the door - I reached out and grasped his hand, my own fingers slipping on the cool contours of his bow. "Please be careful," I said quietly, earnestly, and in those three words, those three words a friend could say to a friend, a stranger could say to a stranger, I hoped he heard three different ones - the three words I was just too afraid to say.

* * *

Most of the preparations for evacuations had been developed during council meetings, though I had been involved to a certain extent. When it came to prepping for actual supplies, of course. The school bus was going to be our main way of getting the bulk of the prison population out of harm's way if the structure was somehow compromised. Other members of the council were put in charge of our remaining vehicles, and the horses. Honey flashed into my mind as I scanned the kitchen for any additional supplies, realizing I would have to start rounding people up. But there was nothing I could do for my horse, not yet. _Crap_.

There was no point in causing a panic yet, I reasoned, and I couldn't very well start actually evacuating people, so instead, I just bellowed out a few orders for remaining inmates to meet in the kitchen. Julia came in with her children, Mika and Lizzie in tow. Levi came in, as did Kathryn and a few others. I began distributing directions, as confidently and calmly as I could manage, though my imagination had begun to run wild and my hands were trembling. "Something's going on, and I know we're all nervous. As soon as we get the go ahead, we may have to enact the evacuation measures we've discussed."

I put the kids in charge of Judith - Kathryn had gone back to the cell to retrieve the sleeping baby, but I would need her help in getting as much food as possible out of the kitchens. Where the hell was Carol, I wondered idly? Why wasn't she helping?

"Get her bag and load it up," I instructed Lizzie, the oldest of the kids. "Diapers and a few clothes, okay? And some bottles and at least one of her little spoons." Older now, Judith could survive off of any of the mashed fruit and vegetables we could prepare for her on the run. "And Lizzie? A couple of blankets, too."

The girl nodded, tugging her sister along behind her. "Luke, go get the carseat," his mother instructed, as she and Molly helped me shove cans and jars into waiting canvas sacks, and a couple of laundry baskets. We already had some supplies on the bus, but taking as much food as we could carry seemed a good idea anyways. If we did have to leave the prison - and shit I hoped it wouldn't come to that - then we would benefit from not having to worry about feeding ourselves while looking for a new home.

"Riley!" Sasha's voice, high and bright with panic, careened into the kitchen before she did, and I gripped her upper arms to steady her on her feet. Her chest was heaving with the effort of her sprinting, and my own heart jumped into my throat at the sight of the normally stoic woman so afraid. "Riley, we've got to get them on the bus. We've got to go. Now!"

"Why?" I asked, nodding at Kathryn and Levi, who each took a basket of food and prepared to head out. Julia followed suit, dragging a couple of sacks with her. "What's going on?"

"It's him."

Guilt, fiery as a comet in my veins, rocketed through me and I swear to God, I could have hit my knees in that moment if I'd possessed one inch less self-control. Curses bloomed from my mouth, to the shock of the kids at my elbow, and I murmured a half-assed apology to their tender ears as I struggled to process this information. There was only one "him." And I hadn't done my part to get rid of him when I could have. When I should have.

"Riley, what's going on?" Mika asked me tremulously, and I pulled the little girl closer, pressing her face into my stomach as her arms wound around me. "What's happening?"

Sasha was gone, heading back out into the yard towards our torment and danger. "Okay, okay," I said, desperately trying to steady my breathing. "Okay. Look, guys, I need you to get yourselves and Judith onto the bus, all right? And once you're on it, you stay on it. Put her down on the floor, not a seat, and then you all get low, do you hear me?"

Luke, Molly, and Mika nodded; Lizzie was struggling to adjust the baby in her carseat. I gently nudged her shoulder until she confirmed she too understood. "Repeat that," I said sternly, zipping up the diaper bag and handing it over. "Repeat it back to me."

Little Molly obliged, tears crowding her voice, and I pushed Mika's hands away from and gently ushered them towards the main doors. "You stay low, you go fast, and you get the hell on that bus. Someone will come to you soon, okay?"

Time crawled once the kids left. To my own eyes, my movements seemed jerky, uncertain. A can of condensed milk, a bag of flour. Forks and knives. I waited for shots from the yard, another explosion, longed for the reassuring words of someone coming in. "False alarm, go back to bed," that's all I wanted to hear.

But no one came.

Together, Julia and I raced through the hallways, chivvying people left right and centre, urging them to get on the bus. Many wanted to stop and pack, but there was no time. "We can find other clothes," I insisted, guiding Mr Jacobsen out of his cell by the elbow. "Please, just go."

Saying goodbye to a home is never easy; worse still when you know you'll never see it again. Wandering through the smouldering wreckage of the Greene farm had been hard enough; watching the quarry camp disappear in the side mirror of Daryl's truck had, somehow, been even worse. And I could still hear the soft _click_ of my dorm room door, closing behind me in my first real goodbye to a home I'd made. When I'd left my parents' house, of course, it had been with the understanding that I would always return - for summer and winter breaks; when the real world got too expensive.

In those moments of farewell, though, as I stalked through the grim halls of the prison that had become our paradise - tears filled my eyes and my soul ached with a preemptive yearning. Concrete, iron, and steel had become the only comfort we needed; the strong and sturdy details of the place we had longed for, had fought for. But we could not die for it. God, the prison was perfect, but we had a chance. We had a chance.

Ill as I had been, the kiss of sunlight upon my skin was a sensation I had not thought to feel again. As I raced across the prison yard, bags in hand, Mr Jacobsen rushing at my heels, I recalled the way the beams had shafted down through the tinted window at the back of the van, just a faint enough flow to remind us of the day outside - and how it had slid across Daryl's skin, soft and gentle as my hands would be upon it. I would tell him, I resolved, feet pounding on the pavement. I would tell him, once we were free. Once the bus had pulled away and he on his motorcycle had joined the convoy. I would tell him, and together, we'd go from there.

At the fence, our fighters stood, ranged against the sickening sight of a line-up of vehicles down beyond the exterior dog-run. In the middle, there was a fucking tank. A goddamn tank. I paused for a moment, Mr Jacobsen taking one of the bags from my grip as he continued on - because I had to bear some kind of witness. If I couldn't be down there at the fence, between Maggie and Beth, gun in my hand, then I would have to, at the very least, see the terror brought to our door.

The Governor, true to form, stood atop the tank, a commanding presence, gazing at his conquest. Bitter as bile, that guilt rose within me again. He was still alive, and I'd given up. Put my own comfort above the needs of my people. Above the debt I owed Andrea.

Daryl was there, at the fence line, distributing weapons to Carl, Beth, Maggie, Tyreese and others; he turned to grab another and his eye caught mine. Unspoken there between us was my request to join them, and his silent denial. He jerked his head towards the bus, and I nodded, knowing that I could do this for him, ease this one burden from his shoulders. As chicken-shit as it made me feel to keep going, I knew he wanted this, and I could do it for him.

 _Tell me, baby cakes, is it love_?

* * *

As it turned out, I didn't stay on the bus. I stepped up long enough to hand the bags over to Kathryn, but then I wanted to head back down to the storage cells. I figured we had time; I could run fairly fast, and, based on a quick glance around the bus, there would be more than enough room for a few bags of spare blankets and towels, at least. Without even bothering to explain my logic, I jogged back to the doors and wrenched them open.

I shoved extra supplies into a large backpack - towels and blankets, balled up as tight as I could make them. The kids should have blankets, I reasoned wildly. The kids should have blankets, if they were going to be sleeping on a school bus. Panic made a martyr of me, a manic one at that, as I found myself reaching for insensible items once the last sheet set had been squeezed into the bag: a ball cap; an extra bag of oatmeal; a large tube of toothpaste. Was that it? Was that it? I scanned the cell for inspiration, knowing I needed to be back out there, knowing I should be on the bus, that this job was stupid and unnecessary, and he would kill me if he found out.

And then I heard the shots.

Faint, from my vantage point in the depths of the prison, but fear and experience magnified them tenfold, so that the gunfire stung and whipped through the air, a steady tattoo that echoed in my own chest and nearly brought me to my knees. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. Now what? What the hell was I supposed to do? I was unarmed, couldn't run out to the fray and help in any way. The most I could hope for was to get enough cover on my way back to the bus, or even to meet up with the rest of the evacuating convoy. But if they were firing at each other, the Governor's people and mine, perhaps there wouldn't be an evacuation at all. Maybe we could win this - stake our claim, kill the Governor, keep the prison.

"Goddamnit!" I punched out towards the wall, holding my fist there as though the contact could ease the pain. "Goddamnit, you fucking idiot," I murmured, tears streaking down my cheeks and blood dripping from my knuckles. "You should've stayed out there."

We weren't going to win, I knew that. The prison was lost to us the moment he'd come back, whenever that had been. All we could hope for now was a safe retreat, together. But I still needed to get to the yard. Safely, without endangering anyone else with my abject foolishness.

Jesus.

I slung the backpack over my shoulders, resolving that, at the very least, I should try to bring back what I'd just stupidly risked my own life for, even it was just towels and blankets. I turned, glancing around once more in vain hope of finding a knife or something to just make myself feel better as I attempted to cross the yard (Bowies are notoriously helpful against semi-automatic weapons, right?), and that's when she grabbed the backpack and pulled me flush against her in an embrace only one of us desired, and I pushed and I pushed but she was stronger and eager to get to know me and I found myself falling, tumbling over the ledge, away from that slim hope and the small promise of love.

My scream went unanswered, because death was at our door.


	31. Damn Easy

_**Chapter XXXI: Damn Easy**_

Once upon a goddamn time, dead was dead. That was the end. There was nothing else. No whispers, no moans, no grasping hands in the dark. Once upon a time, a corpse stayed the fuck down.

I missed that.

The walker had me pulled against her, hands wrapped stupidly in the soft bulk of the backpack. No flesh, not yet. I pitched forward, hoping to somehow fling her from my back with the force of the jerk - happily, she stumbled, not rolling over my head, but certainly dashing off to the side and careening into a stack of boxes. "Screw you," I muttered, kicking out blindly towards her as she attempted to crawl my way again. "Screw you; you can have it." I tossed the backpack at her face.

She was thin, emaciated. Rotting grey flesh hung from her bones, making it impossible for me to peg a guess on her age or origins, and honestly, I didn't really give a shit. I was so sick of them, so tired of fighting this fight over and over again - being repeatedly engaged in a struggle that seemed, somehow, to smack of poetic irony. Fending off death from the hands of the dead, and all that. They repulsed me now; there was no pity in my heart. I just wanted to be on that bus, wanted to hold the kids tight, wanted to hear the rumble of a motorcycle driving close behind. I just wanted to be away, with the people I could call home.

The walker lunged forward again, staggering to her feet with her arms outstretched and a wild screech of intent, and I dodged to the left, fully intending to simply back away and leave the dead bitch as a surprise for the Governor - if he survived the altercation in the yard. But I miscalculated on an epic scale, and she followed - I aimed a punch to her temple, hoping to set her off balance enough for me to slam the cell door shut behind me. She took the opportunity to grasp at the loose flaps of my unzipped hoodie, and I teetered to the side, knocking my head against the iron end of the lower bunk. Pain, dull and earnest, burst behind my eyes, and I could have thrown up with the ache, I really could have.

Dead hands gripped my ankle, and I shoved, pushing with both feet until the soft squelch of her body gave way and she slid into the corridor beyond - thank God we'd moved close enough to the mouth of the cell that that was possible. My hands were sticky with my own blood as I wrapped them both around the smooth iron bars and pulled the door close, towards me, catching the walker's foot slightly as I did so. _Don't close it all the way, you goddamn idiot_ , I thought, easing one boot between the wall and the frame of the bars. I needed to keep it closed just enough to put some space between those snapping jaws and my fragile skin.

"All right, come and get me." I dangled a hand invitingly through the space between two bars further down the length of the door, drawing the walker's attention to about an arm's length away. She pulled away, eager for a snack, but I wrenched my fingers back before she could get to them.

My goal was to get her back in the cell. Then I could slam the door behind me and run like hell - the prison was fully evacuated, so far as I knew; I could shut the doors to the cellblock closed and leave her to fucking rot, or whatever it was walkers did in their spare time. To do that, though, I would have to entreat her inside without actually sacrificing any limbs in the process.

With the hand still holding the door, I pushed out slightly, sending her reeling back about a foot or two. Good. That bought me some more time, too. Now, if could just get her to move further down, I could swing the door open, kick her inside, or...

Under the toe of my boot, I'd managed to pin what appeared to be a shirt of thin cotton. I could use that to loop around her head, maybe? And then push her inside, eyes covered? I mean, I'd seen eyeless walkers before - so long as their brain wasn't damaged, they would keep on keeping on, regardless of the loss of eyes, ears, hands, even feet. But having just the briefest sightless moment could disorient her enough that I would be able to have the upper hand as she tried to search for me by smell alone.

Great. Okay.

"I'm delicious, you know," I said, dangling my fingers closer to my face now, drawing her forward. "Like, damn tasty." I moved my hand again, back towards the other side of the frame, and she followed. That gave me a chance to ease the door ajar another several inches, enough so that I could slip through, there we go, just another inch…

A low hum, like the rumblings of some swarm of insects, curled out from the corridor beyond - a discordant series of grating moans, amping up in enthusiasm as the scent of my fresh, hot blood grew stronger with each subsequent drip.

"Okay," I huffed, wiping away the stream as best I could. "New plan."

Daryl would have killed me if he'd witnessed what I did next: even I have to admit, it was pretty goddamn stupid. Actually, let's use the term "foolhardy." That leaves room for charm, style. Not just an incredible lack of foresight. How terribly it could have gone.

I opened the door wide, beckoned her in, flattening myself back against it and kicking out one foot so that she tripped. Sprawled across the floor, in the time it took me to slam the door shut again and settle myself on her back, she had only just registered that her lunch was fighting back. Outside, shuffling footsteps advanced. Quickly, I twisted both of her arms back; her shoulders rolled naturally, and her hands met neatly (though she was still grabbing and spitting) between my legs. Clothes were scattered on the floor around me - I used the cotton shirt first to tie a loose knot around her wrists, while I looked for something better.

A pair of glittery sneakers, not half a foot away. Daryl had picked them up one day in a used clothing store, about six months ago. For Molly. He'd actually referred to her by name, jolting me from my manic reverie as I moved through the quiet space, diligently checking off needed items from the List. In the dark, he'd held up the shoes, glinting from his flashlight, and suggested she might like them. The gesture had touched me immensely, the simple kindness of finding something fun for a child in a dying world, ensuring that though she walked through grief and sadness, she could walk _in_ small flashes of joy.

I'd almost hugged him.

Molly had worn the shoes to death, and had taken a growth spurt a few months ago which had necessitated another supply run. Her mother had relegated the sneakers back down to the storage cells, leading to me audibly thanking God for Molly's big feet.

The laces gave way pretty quickly, but already, two more walkers had gathered outside the cell door, hands reaching through in a vain attempt to get to know me. Months ago, I'd had Tyreese remove the locking mechanism on the storage cells as best he could; the door could still fit neatly into the frame, but it wouldn't stay there. Lucky for me, however, walkers are dumb as shit.

She was trying hard to buck me off, and three times I nearly lost my balance. Despite that, I managed to thread the loosened shoelaces around her wrists, realizing they wouldn't be nearly sturdy enough to hold her grip back for long, but they would enable me to get a good enough handle on her that I could make it upstairs. She'd come from the Tombs, I suspected, as had the others. We did our best to keep those lower cellblocks as clear as possible, but a few stragglers always managed to find their way in. They were part of the reason we always had to carry some sort of weapon on us, even inside the prison: a knife or something. But when I'd been picking out my clothes that morning, I had neglected to think of arming myself in any way.

Daryl would've killed me for that, too.

Actually, my likelihood of survival seemed to be increasing because he wasn't there to rebuke my half-assed strategizing.

The knot wasn't tight by any means, but I could get a grip on it, sufficient enough to direct her movements. Now just to take care of her mouth.

I don't really need to describe it, do I? I mean, it was gross as hell enough the first time around. Suffice it to say, I swiftly relieved my friend of her lower jaw and most of her teeth, with a sharp jab of my boot, after wrapping my hand in a knot of her shoulder-length hair and jerking her head to the side.

The idea had come from Michonne's chained walkers. I'd spent eight months with them, and on multiple occasions had benefited from the natural camouflage they had been able to provide. Now, the smell of my fresh blood was going to be pretty damn tempting, but I was hoping that just those two walkers alone could be fooled by my new friend's pungent odor long enough to let us pass through the corridor and upstairs to the kitchen - where I could take care of her with a knife or a ladle or the edge of one of the metal tables.

I just needed to get back upstairs. If I could do that, and suss out the situation in the prison yard, everything would be fine. We'd lose the prison, but everything would be fine. Everything would be fine.

The walker was actually surprisingly weighty, for how thin she was. It took me two tries to heave her up to her feet, and then I needed to dart around her side. Once I was behind her, it was easy for me to brace one fist at the nape of her neck to keep her looking forward, though she was desperate to look at me. _I just need to get upstairs_ , I thought rapidly. _Just get upstairs._

As an afterthought, I stepped one foot through the loop of the backpack's straps. Such an impediment about my ankles would help me to adopt that shuffling gait - and I might as well bring the supplies I'd nearly died for, I supposed.

Together, in an odd dance, we inched out from the cell. I had to remove the hand from her neck in order to open the cell door, and the two walkers outside thought this a brilliant opportunity to lunge for my hand, which I quickly nestled back in her hair. I tried to steady and lower my breathing, to quell the shuddering, shallow gulps of air I'd been taking thus far. With Michonne's attendants, when in close proximity to other walkers, we'd had to be very mindful of noise and movement; anything too human or lively could tip off their minimally-functioning brains that we were something more interesting than just another walking corpse.

 _Shit, shit, shit, shit_.

My walker groaned and moaned as I pushed her forward, hoping my movements seemed just as choppy and hesitant as hers. The other two parted slightly, shifting back in some confusion (if they were capable of that). They'd be able to smell me, I was sure of it - hell, the blood was still dripping down my face - but the stink rolling off my new friend would cover me for the several feet to the end of the corridor.

It worked. Fucking hell, it worked. The other two left me alone, let us pass, and my heart jumped to my throat - success tasted so damn sweet. This was so damn easy. God, I was a fucking genius, I couldn't believe it, everything was going to be fine and Daryl would be so impressed and I was about to get on the bus, just a few more steps, around the corner - there was the kitchen, I could kill the walker in a minute, better just check the main door -

Goddamnit.

* * *

I hadn't seen the prison in the early days, when it still belonged to the dead. I hadn't known the sight of a field filled with anything but grass and graves and gardens, not for too long. There had been the moments, of course, when I had first arrived, after fleeing Woodbury and returning with Daryl and Merle, when a few dozen walkers had crowded the interior field. But we'd beaten them back together, defended our home.

And now it was lost.

Vehicles - abandoned, ravaged, smoking - littered the yard, causing impediments for the walkers in their relentless advance towards the yard. The fence had been crushed, probably by the tank; they were pouring in from all around.

I couldn't see the bus. And there was no one else.

No one else.

I slammed the door shut, shoving out at my walker with a hoarse sob. There were only a few options in front of me: either my people were dead, dead and walking, or they'd left.

Both options left me alone there in the prison.

The walker had fallen to the kitchen floor when I'd pushed her; by the time I'd sunk down onto a stool, she was nudging at my side, shoulders rolling and twisting with her effort to break loose of the shoelaces, which weren't likely to hold much longer anyways. "Hello?" I said quietly, into the gloom. "Is anybody there?"

I longed for a gruff-voiced reply, for him to step out and pull me close, press me against his chest as he had done back in Woodbury, shielding me from the bad things. But that was a child's instinct, wasn't it? To wish for a burden to slide to the shoulders of another? Daryl wasn't here; Michonne wasn't here; Rick wasn't here. Had they all gotten on the bus, I wondered dully, pushing the walker away again?

Or were they lying dead in the yard, riddled with bullet holes?

Were they dying as I sat here?

Did they think I was dead, too?

She nudged me again, ducking low and mouthing bloodily at my sleeve with her broken, gaping jaw, and I shot to my feet. "You fucking bitch!" I screamed, grabbing hold of a hank of her hair. "Jesus Christ, you fucking bitch. I hate you, you know that? I hate the whole goddamn bunch of you. You're disgusting. You're fucked. You're nothing."

I punctuated every word with a yank of her hair, pulling her down towards the floor until she stayed there, puddled at my feet, desperate to eat me, to tear me to pieces. She hated me, too - but wanted me. What a strange, convoluted tangle the world was now - that death craved life, and life became death, as it always had, but in a new, aberrant way. We were all of us caught in it, and she and I, my new friend, exemplified in the struggle we now found ourselves in. Bloody, broken shards of a face rubbed at my boots; her hair in my hand, caught beneath my fingernails. In flashes, I understood - it dawned upon me now that I had to leave. If I stayed, I would become her. But in order to leave, I needed to bring her with me.

Tears streamed down my face as I packed, emptying the backpack of everything I could quickly deem unnecessary. The oatmeal, towels, and blankets went, tossed to the floor of the kitchen; instead, I dumped a small plastic tub, filled with remaining knives, into the bag; there were a few jars of peaches left on the shelves; and an old box of cereal. I wrapped that in one of the towels, hoping that that would muffle the sound of the shifting cornflakes somewhat. The baseball cap I pulled down over my eyes, folding the brim in the way my brothers had once done, and the gesture comforted me, even briefly. I didn't have much time beyond that; already, dead fists had begun to bang against the door, and the utter ache of absence thrummed through me - how was I going to do this on my own? I had never been alone, not for any great amount of time. The minutes between Chloe's death and Daryl's arrival; the days in the closet - neither had prepared me for this feeling, for this particular brand of solitude.

Those tasks, simple as they were, kept the bulk of the grief at bay, so that the tears and trembling fingertips were the only outward signs of my distress. They were the only ones I could afford to indulge in for the time being. Over and over again through my head, the possibilities danced: they might be dead, they might be gone; the occupants of the bus may just have tried to get further up the road, and they were waiting for me.

Logic told me that we'd neither lost nor won: the Governor had yet to actually come striding into the prison to claim it, but the fact that all signs of my people were gone was a clear indication that we'd given up the prison to the dead, at least, if not to him. Unless he was dead, too.

A girl can dream.

"All right, dumbass," I muttered to the walker, "let's go get you a friend." The instinct to have two walkers was patterned only after Michonne's example. Before heading back down to to the storage cells, where I knew one would be waiting, I pulled out a mop and broom from the corner at the far end of the kitchen area. The heads came off quite easily; the things were old and overworked.

I used the handles, combined with some torn lengths of bedsheet (which I'd left on the kitchen floor) to create leads, of sorts. I figured I could loop the sheets around the walkers' necks, and then guide them both with the handles. Two were better than one, I reasoned, but then the next impediment formed itself: if I was leading the walkers with two hands, how the hell was I going to kill anything else?

"Okay, listen up," I said to the walker, fully aware by this point that I really shouldn't be so engaged with the thing; it wasn't as if she understood, after all. "We're going to get another one, but don't get too attached. I'll kill them once we're away from the prison. It'll get us out, but no further." I could use the broom handle to get rid of the second walker, and then I could maybe shave down the end to some sort of sharper point.

She kicked up a fuss, let me tell you, when I put the sheet noose around her neck. Even more so when I started pushing her forward, nudging her towards the corridor leading down to the storage cells. I'd shut the door behind me when I'd entered, and immediately upon entering the hall, wished I'd stayed in the kitchen.

Somewhere, within the bowels of the prison, there was a breach. The halls were swarming with the dead, and I knew then I had just one option.

I had to gut the fuck up.

* * *

I skimmed out of the jeans and t-shirt; they were going to be perfect for the road, I didn't want to waste them on this. Instead, I managed to dash into C-block and grab a few items of clothing from the cell closest to the kitchen - in a fog of panic, I couldn't remember whose it had been.

Dumbass didn't die again; I'd already put too much effort into making her my guide walker, I didn't want to have to gut her. I pulled one from the corridor into the kitchen with us, in what might actually go on record as the riskiest thirty seconds of my entire life. Luckily, the thing was quite thin, and lighter than Dumbass: I tossed him against the nearest table and then drove a kitchen knife, best as I could manage, through the base of his skull.

Once he was dead, I donned the makeshift poncho, crafted from another one of the bedsheets, and tucked the backpack, stuffed now with my clothes, too, underneath. All that was left to do was actually gut the walker and drape myself in his intestines.

Easy, right?

Glenn and Rick had done it, a long time ago, back in Atlanta. In fact, gutting up had actually been the key to their survival, during their escape from a walker-infested block of the city. The smell of decay and rotting flesh did little to whet a corpse's appetite, meaning that wearing my sick little poncho would actually provide me with better coverage than Dumbass could. Still, her leading the way wouldn't hurt my chances either.

It was repulsive work, and I vomited twice, though whether that was purely from disgust or an aftershock from my knock on the head, I couldn't be quite sure. Or it could have been from panic, from the sheer, meaty panic of those dead fists and moans coming at me from multiple angles; a sneaking sliver fear had entered my heart by now, too, listening to the sounds - were the fists of someone I had loved pounding at the door?

No matter what, though, I needed to get out of the prison. It belonged to the dead now. And I wanted to circumvent the yard as much as possible, meaning that the yawning, ragged maw of the exposed back of the prison, leading into the Tombs, would be my best guess. They were probably crawling with walkers by now, but I was covered, I hoped. In any event, I didn't exactly have the luxury of waiting around for a better idea to slap me across the face. And no one was coming to help. I was on my own.

At least for now.

Hope kindled somewhere inside me, burnishing my movements and decisions with a pretty gloss, a pitiful series of bargains: _if I gut up and walk out, Daryl will be looking for me near the woods; if I can make it through the Tombs, I'll come across the bus; if I can take just one step without passing out, everything will be fine._

"Ready?" I asked to no one.

"Ready," I replied.

* * *

The first twenty minutes of my escape went flawlessly, truly. Our plodding advance through the lower cellblocks and the administrative corridor left me gasping for breath all the same, fear surging deeper and more acute with each passing moment. For the most part, we moved blindly - I had neglected to bring along any sort of light - but Daryl's voice in my head, his rough logic and past lessons, guided me through: " _Your eyes are gonna adjust to the darkness a bit more. Just wait. The air'll change when you get closer to the open part. You'll know when_."

As long as we kept going straight - and if we moved at all, we moved to the left - we should be fine. Time wore on and my vision did seem to be getting clearer, the blackness lightening to a penetrable palette of deep blues and grays. In a sea of confusion, walkers headed towards the depths of the prison and followed us out; there were no humans to scent and swarm, and they seemed, somehow to be struggling to herd up. It was a natural phenomenon, that eventually a large enough group of walkers would tend to head in the same direction, but perhaps their limited vision and the lack of prey was befuddling them somehow, I mused.

Sparking between them, too, I registered brief flashes of bright lights - the first time I saw them, I nearly cried out with relief, thinking them to be the sweeping beams and flickerings of flashlights from my people.

My calves ached with the strain of too much exercise after days of disuse, burning with the insistence that I sit down, lay down, rest for a moment; my head pounded dully, too, arguing for the same thing, and I could have happily given in, fallen asleep in the middle of the Tombs and waited for better dreams. I was so tired; my eyelids drooped, weighed down by pain and exhaustion - the dark was so lovely, so velvet, so anonymous, as corpses brushed past me thinking me one of their own, as I sunk deeper into the relative silence of my progress through the winding hallways, always just a few steps behind my walker.

Sunlight, when it arrived, set my skin gleaming and my whole body shaking with victory. I had done it; escaped the prison, escaped the dead. Now just to get to the woods. I craved now the comfort of the green, leafy haven - between Michonne and Daryl, I had been taught to treat the place as a second kind of home, a sanctuary to which I could retreat when the world demanded too much. Within the trees, I could pause and breathe; the walkers were still flooding into the prison, from every angle as far as I could see.

I did round the corner tentatively, arcing wide around the edge of the prison to get a last look, one final check before I gave myself completely to the journey I suspected was ahead. And in that look, that scan across the wide expanse of our ruin, I knew heartbreak, bitter and pure, for the thousandth time in just over twenty years of living. Ice surged through my veins, replacing even the briefest glimmer of hope with the cruelest kind of knowledge: the irrefutable.

Before me lay my world, razed to the ground by a ghost I'd tried to forget. And smouldering in the wreckage of everything we'd tried to build, there were memories of good moments: peace and calm and cigarettes in the evening light; berries bursting on my tongue; Honey's soft whickers and beautiful eyes.

All gone. Faded into nothing now but the steady, relentless march of the dead.

A soundless fury erupted from my lungs as I surveyed the devastation. Numbly, I turned to the forest, my mind struggling to wrap itself around this concept, this utter sense of loss, to no avail. There was nothing but me now, clad in blood and led by death.

* * *

 **Feedback is always appreciated :)**


	32. But Do The Dead Sing?

**Chapter XXXII: But Do The Dead Sing?**

" _You're not my usual type, you know. Older, wiser, scary as hell. All that. And it wasn't 'love at first sight,' don't think that. I mean, sure - it was 'trust at first sight,' and maybe that's worse, I don't know. I just knew that I could follow you. You were my first choice, really, in the new world. Post-Chloe. After Chloe, whatever._

 _"It's like my life got split into two timelines or something. For most people, probably, it's like, before and after the world fell to shit. But for me, it's her. It always comes back to her. The person I was before she died, and the person I had to become without her. And now I'm thinking of you in the same way. Like, there's the person I was with you, and the person I have to be because you're not here._

 _"I don't think you're dead. Not really. Not like you can't ever die or anything like that - just, I feel like...maybe...I'd know? God, that's stupid. Never mind. Pretend I didn't say anything."_

* * *

Leaning back against the firm trunk of a gnarled tree, sliding down the side of it, leaving a trail of borrowed blood - I finally managed to take a breath.

The flight from the prison yard had stretched into years, and I felt every one of them sing through me, a discordant, croaky tune, as I sat there, Dumbass pacing slowly about me. In the distance, my history faded, flickering out into a dull kind of posterity, the one remembered only by a few. But who were those few? My mission now was to find them. To return myself to them. To forgive them for leaving me behind.

When I had fallen into the well, such a goddamn long time ago, I had raged internally, waxing poetic (mentally, of course), about the fact that my family had, it seemed, abandoned me. Now, in retrospect, I understood how it must have seemed: for me to have fallen away from view, trampled beneath the almighty advance of the hungry dead. Logically, they would have had no choice but to leave without me, possessing no recourse, no ideas as to my possible rescue or retrieval.

But damn it if I didn't wish they would come back to check.

Solitude had become a rarity in the new world; privacy a commodity, bartered for with kind words and offers to take over the next watch shift. Maggie and Glenn had traded in it well - I had a stock of mint chocolate protein bars in one corner of my cell, testifying to all the times Daryl and I had swapped off on their watches or patrol duties so they could catch a few minutes alone.

And I would give every single one of them back for a moment with her or Glenn or Daryl. I just wanted someone there, someone to tell me what to do next. Cravenly, I had grown used to being advised and ordered - go here, do this, try that, don't do that. I liked the peace of that space: letting Michonne take charge, or Rick, or Daryl. For so long, I had leaned into the wisdom of others older and more tested than myself, luxuriating in the sweet release of responsibility, where I was not culpable, where I was not at fault, where not a single ounce of onus was on me to save anyone, let alone myself.

I'd postured, of course. Strutted around like a badass. Along the way I'd had a few good ideas, a few occasions when the strength of my own conviction outweighed the challenges in front of me. But now there was just me - just me, a bloody sheet, a goddamn tree, and that stupid walker.

"Any suggestions?" I asked wryly, once again mentally berating myself for engaging with this thing. "Any sudden flashes of brilliance, you let me know, okay?"

She had no answer.

Jesus. The weight of indecision hit me then, as I realized I had no clue what to do next. Not one single solitary extinct, save for the one to put as much distance between myself and the prison as possible. The place felt alien now, forbidden even. As though I had no right to sit there any longer, to bear witness to the last hours of my erstwhile home, as it succumbed to flame and death.

I ran.

Well, I say, "ran," because the desperation threading through my veins and the steady, pounding beat of my heart were worth a run - but it was more of a stumbling, faltering progression deeper into the embrace of the forest, pushing Dumbass ahead of me, pausing at one point to wrench the bloody sheet from my body with a sob. "Fucking hell," I breathed, dropping to my knees at the edge of a creek. "Fucking hell."

What to do?

Dreams beckoned - brighter places where I could lounge for a while, an anonymous plane of existence where the monsters could not follow.

* * *

" _I was afraid of you, you know. At first. Your hands were so tight around me, I thought you might have been one of them. 'Stronger than the dead' - did you ever think there would be a day when that could be a compliment? But you are, you are. And you brought me back from it. I really thought I was going to die down there._

 _"When we lost her, together, I was worried that we'd fall apart, you and I. That she was the only thing holding us together, that you'd never really forgive me for choosing him. And it wasn't anything like, 'I want to get laid so I'm gonna follow him,' it was more like...like...I don't even know. All I do know is that coming back to you and building that life with you right there - I can't tell you how amazing that was. How beautiful._

 _"I loved her. Both of them. I think I may love him. But I_ need _you."_

* * *

I bathed in the river, stripping off the bloodsoaked clothes with very little thought given to what it might be like to be discovered. Hell, I'd take any friendly human (live, of course) bursting from the treeline, catching me stark naked, over this loneliness. This utter absence of...I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

The bloody clothes remained there on the ground; I didn't bother to wait until I'd dried off before I was slipping into the jeans and t-shirt Sasha had helped me to pick out, a hundred years ago. What would she tell me to do, now? What would Michonne or Daryl advise?

 _Take stock_ : _What do you have? What can you use? How badly are you hurt?_

Okay.

I'd kept my head out of the water for the most part, to avoid getting any bacteria in the still-streaming wound from where I'd hit the iron bedstead back in the cell. It could've used some ice, I thought - the ache was beginning to grow in insistence, now that the major issue of escaping had been handled. My brain could now attend to other matters.

Daryl didn't usually worry too much about boiling water, I recalled now. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the most prominent concern would be farm runoff or garbage dumping - and both hadn't taken place in well over a year. He'd simply filled up our water bottles and told us to drink, when we were out on runs. Hydration was more important than worrying about that now, anyways.

I rinsed my wound gently with a handful of water, loath to dunk my head under entirely. Dumbass writhed beside me - I'd driven her broom handle into the ground at least an inch or two, after shoving her to her knees. Bless her heart, the thing was too stupid to figure out how to get back up at the moment.

My gash needed pressure, too. Not deep enough for stitches, I hoped. Maybe once I was reunited with Hershel, we could figure something out. Until then, though, pressure was going to have to do.

Fortunately, when I'd dumped the contents of the silverware tub into my backpack, a worn dishcloth had made its way inside, too. I folded it into a fat, quartered wedge, and pressed that against my forehead as I assessed the rest of my supplies. The knives would come in handy; I really should stick one in each boot, I reasoned. Seemed like something Daryl would do.

I could fucking kick myself for not having my knife on me in the prison. The last several weeks, I'd gotten lax with being armed, having grown too comfortable in my routine to worry too much about having my Bowie near at hand. Of course, I'd never anticipated the prison being attacked before breakfast and having to make a speedy, solitary escape through the Tombs…

 _Shit_.

I didn't want to cry; what good would that do? Focus was needed, more intense and expansive than I had ever deployed before in my life. There was no one else around to intercede for me, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to hold the fort while I indulged in some light sobbing. No one to save me. I couldn't afford to cry.

But that didn't stop the tears from coming.

I was a child. Daryl was right: a goddamn kid. Too stupid to keep a knife on her in a world filled with monsters. And now I was going to have to pay for that foolishness, because my greatest goddamn fear had finally come true - the sneaking little anxiety that lurked in the back of my mind through the day; the subtle terror underpinning every relationship I had formed since Chloe, hell, even before her: I didn't want to be alone. Not fully. Moments of privacy, a quiet place to read or think or drink, that was fine. We all needed that.

But this solitude was potent and sure, pressing down unyieldingly upon me from all sides. _Alone, alone, all on your own_. The quiet of the forest grew to a deafening hum, and I happily could've screamed out my frustration, the purest kind of purge. And then brought down a goddamn herd of walkers upon myself.

Brilliant.

 _Okay, Riley, get your shit together._

Deep in my chest, the coil of panic was beginning to stir again, as the full weight of my situation began making introductions: I was lost and disoriented in the woods, unsure of precisely which creek I was sitting next to, the familiar road somewhere far behind me; I had a head wound and no discernible way to bind it; and I had no idea where any of my family was, or if they were even _alive_.

"Shit! Shit!" I pressed my knuckles firmly into my closed my eyes, willing myself not to tumble into that particular pit of despair. It was a long, hard, bloody-fingered climb out of there. Instead, I tried to anchor myself to the moment, cataloguing the various concrete elements of my surroundings in order to more fully acclimate to the situation.

Going by senses usually helped. I'd been doing some reading over the past few months, burning through a few old psychology textbooks in the prison library, and had found one tactic for anchoring that helped more than any others - increasing and solidifying your presence in the moment, however stressful it may be, by simply observing and focusing on at least five components of that moment.

Something I could feel: the grass beneath my fingertips, from where my hands draped down by my sides.

Something I could hear: water trickling merrily away next to me; the low rasping groans of my only companion.

Something I could see: a fallen log on the opposite bank, overgrown by a thick green moss.

Something I could smell: _ugh_ , hell - Dumbass.

Something I could taste: the dull, flat, disappointing decadence of hunger.

My eyes snapped open at that realization. Always a good thing. Okay, if I was hungry, that was a problem I could solve fairly quickly.

 _Take everything one step at a time_. Michonne had said that once, in the early days, when my body had ached from my fall down the well and my heart had shattered in my chest, sundered by loss and fear of abandonment. She'd been a big believer in simply tackling one problem on its own, and then moving on to the next. One foot in front of the other, that was her philosophy. In this way, we'd carved a life together in the woods, the three of us, with Andrea.

I could do that again now.

Problem one: food.

Dumbass was still secure; I took a moment to pace out the area, listening carefully for breaking branches and crunching grass, but could hear nothing. For the time being, it appeared, we were on our own.

I had taken three jars of peaches with me from the prison. I figured I could make do with a quarter of a jar twice a day, and in this way could get nearly a week out of my supply. By that point, I was sure, I would locate something else to eat, something to supplement the fruit, but for now, I could handle this.

My fingers were sticky with juice by the time I was done, and now I had a new problem to contend with. Water. I knew Daryl would've been pissed off at me by now - he'd always prioritized shelter over anything else (telling me on more than one occasion that it was basic survival rule number one), but I figured I still had, judging by the sun and my general awareness of how much time had passed since my shower earlier that morning, at least four hours of daylight to find someplace to stay.

I could afford to figure out my water source first.

The Mason jars holding the peaches were my only containers. After a few minutes' deliberation, I decided I could reasonably enjoy a few more slices (I hadn't had breakfast, after all), and then try to cram the remaining half into the other two jars. That way, I could have at least sixteen ounces of water on hand during my search for shelter.

Problem two, solved.

"Jealous?" I asked Dumbass wryly, squeezing another plump slice between my fingertips - already the sweetness was growing too heady on my empty stomach. "I mean, your diet sure as hell leaves a lot to be desired." Was there some part of their dimly functioning brains, I wondered - chewing thoughtfully as she strained to reach me - that could remember the squishy yielding of summer fruit, the sacrosanct relief of a glass of water in the middle of a thirsty night? Cake, God, it had been such a long time since I'd had a damn piece of _cake_. Sugary frosting tucking in the corners of my mouth, licking chocolate from my fingers - _goddamn_.

Jesus Christ, I could've laughed out loud. There I was, lost and forgotten, entirely bereft of advice, care, and companionship, and I was reminiscing about the taste of chocolate cake.

* * *

" _I'd follow you anywhere, you know. Ends of the Earth. I know I messed up after Woodbury, but things were rough and murky there for a while. I want you to know how much I trust you, how much I believe in you. I know you'll keep us safe, always look out for the best for all of us. And I can't imagine how that feels on your shoulders. I'm sorry._

 _"I'm sorry about Lori, too. I don't know that kind of loss, but I'm afraid of it every day. I can't imagine your pain, and I understand your need to step away, to be someone else for a little while. A new man for a new world. Believe me, I get that._

 _"I want to see you again. But this time, I want you to believe in_ me _. I want you to be proud of me."_

* * *

I started calling her "Peach."

"Dumbass" felt mean and petty, and maybe it was a sudden cowardly need for redemption, maybe it was some continuation of my childish mental bargaining - maybe if I was nicer to my dead companion, the world would turn in my favour - but "Peach" she became. Not that she answered to it at all, and not that I talked to her too extensively. Silence was going to be my greatest boon, moving through the forest in an attempt to orient myself.

Enter problem three: shelter.

My first instinct was to begin blindly running down the main highway in search of my family. That instinct, however, was absolutely moronic, on multiple counts. I didn't know where they were, or even if they were alive; such an action would be a monumental waste of precious daylight; and I wasn't even quite sure, at this point, where the main road was.

What would Daryl want me to do?

 _Find a place to be. Find someplace you can secure. Keep covered and keep quiet. Figure it out in the morning_.

Standing, I tugged the backpack over my shoulders and tightened the straps as much as possible. "Okay, Peach, here we go," I murmured, retrieving her lead from the sizeable tunnel I'd made in the ground and pushing her ahead of me. She struggled against the broom handle, obviously preferring another to launch another futile attempt at rending the flesh from my bones. "Come on, we've got to find a motel."

I'd raced from the prison in a panic, head aching and heart breaking; stupidly, I'd neglected to keep track of where I was actually heading. I possessed a vague notion that I'd run west, but I could've been mistaken. Once the trees had begun to increase in thickness around me, I had finally allowed myself to slow and relax - but by that point, of course, I was already hopelessly lost.

There was a slim chance the little body of water we'd just left had been Turner Creek, the same stream we'd paused at just a few days before. If that was the case, then I was probably situated northwest of the prison. However, I reasoned, stepping gingerly over an exposed root, there was a strong chance it was some other creek entirely.

The road held promise; of course, it would be exposed, but there were also a few houses dotting the main way, and about a forty minute walk away from the prison, there was a small housing development. We'd cleared most of them early on, but at this point, I wasn't worried so much about supplies as just being covered for the night.

As I walked, I tried to focus on the facts, cold as they were, turning them over and over again in my mind, as I'd once done with the jasper stone, trying to understand, to memorize, to simply _know_ what my life was to be, as of right now.

The facts were these: I had food for five to six days. I had water. I was on my way to figuring out some shelter. I had knives in my boots and my bag. I had a walker that would provide me with enough cover (I hoped) to get to a safe place. I had bound the cut in my forehead with the torn pieces of the washcloth. I was alive.

But I was also afraid - that fear thrummed through me without fail. Even as I held a full blown attack at bay with repeated sense-based anchoring, I was scared. Terrified. Dark _what-ifs_ plagued my thoughts, dashing in between those calming intentions - " _I can see an old tire. I can hear a bird_ " - slithering about the ankles of my firm logic, threatening to upend it entirely.

What if I couldn't find shelter?

What if I encountered the last vestiges of that herd from a few days ago?

What if everyone was dead and I was going to be on my own for the rest of my life? What if they'd died bloody and painful? What if they were looking for me? What if they weren't? What if they were walkers?

And then, as a grand finale, somehow blazing, burning, _searing_ in its subtle horror, the thought that would come to plague my mind for days: What if _I_ was dead?

* * *

" _You're funny, you know. You're a cool kid. Sometimes I hated having older brothers. Their sole goal in life was to piss me off. But you? You're like a little brother. I wish we'd had more time. I wish I'd taken more time._

 _"I miss you now. Now that you're not here. I took it for granted, passing you in the hallways, seeing you head out to help your dad in the fields. We were always just passing by. If we meet again - scratch that,_ when _we meet again, I'll spend more time with you. We'll share those comic books. We'll talk about things. Properly. Like a brother and sister should do._

 _"I'm sorry I reacted that way about the kid from Woodbury. Truth was, that made me angry, but not necessarily at you. Just...that the world is that way now. That one kid has to point a gun at another because there's a strong possibility one intends to kill the other. It just confused the hell out of me. How did we get here? How is that my life?_

 _"I miss you, bud. Things will be better soon. I'll make sure of it."_

* * *

"I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I'm not dead." A mantra of sorts, I muttered this under my breath as we continued to trudge through the woods, reminding myself with each cramp, each misstep, each branch to the face, that I was _alive_. I was alive. Blood pumping through my veins; craving chocolate cake, not brains.

The heat of the day reached its zenith soon, roasting me alive, so that I had to shift the hoodie from my back to my waist, bringing Peach to a firm halt as I did so. Tempted as I was to try another few slices of fruit, I had to resist, and instead indulged in a handful of stale cornflakes.

Around me, the growth of trees seemed to be thinning somewhat; rather than a seemingly impenetrable wall of old, thick trunks, I could see that the bulk of them were younger, slimmer. Newly-planted, perhaps to replace the ones trimmed away when the road was put in? Or, perhaps the sign of some human interference. Perhaps someone had a hunting camp or even a house nearby. At this point, even some sort of a blind up in a tree would be a welcome spot to stop. Peach would have to stay on the ground, of course.

"I'm not dead," I murmured again, navigating a small brook - when I say small, I mean _small_ ; just one step and I was over it - and pausing again, to listen, to look. "I'm not dead."

It was a powerful conviction, surging through me, but not strong enough to dispel those niggling little doubts. As I walked, I found no indication of any other living presence, save for that of some birds and squirrels. No human footprints, no dropped supplies. Perhaps when I got to the road, I would have a better chance of encountering someone, but until then, I was continually running the simple fact that, to my mind, I had been abandoned.

Now, logically, it was my own damn fault. And I surely blamed myself for my current predicament. I should've stayed on the bus. It was the rule, the expectation, the plan. I'd gone off-script at the worst possible time and I was paying for it now. But - and this was damn childish - I was kind of mad. Angry that no one had come looking for me. That I had had to orchestrate my own escape. That no one had missed me. Looked back. Questioned where I was.

Did he know? Did he know I wasn't on the bus? Had he swept on himself, or had he taken his bike, thinking that I was safe and carsick just up ahead?

Or, did he know at all?

* * *

" _I loved you, you know. I loved you when you held me. I loved you in the mornings, when your voice was all raspy with sleep, and you'd lean over and kiss me on the forehead. You never kissed me on the mouth without brushing your teeth first, not in the mornings. I loved you for that._

 _"I loved you in the afternoon, when you'd pick me up from class and carry my backpack, put your hand on the small of my back. I loved you when you read through my papers, checking for one too many dashes or semi-colons. I loved you when you got drunk and wrote that poem about burritos._

 _"I loved you when you wrote out a plan for my survival, when you taught me on notepaper how to live without you. I loved you when you called me sweetheart, when we said goodbye, when I left and walked straight into your worst nightmare._

 _"I loved you when you let me go."_

* * *

One level. Two doors.

Perfect.

Problem three: solved.

I cleared it in just under ten minutes. There were two walkers trapped in the bathroom, the deep brown stains of their last moments together blooming on the wall next to the shower. I used the toilet and the edge of the countertop to put them down, deciding that I needed to save my meagre weaponry for the bigger fish I would inevitably have to fry.

Most of the windows had already been covered with sheets, tarps, and plywood. The couple - based on the photographs on the mantle, a pair of retirees, somewhere in their late fifties - had obviously tried to endure as they could. It had been raided pretty thoroughly, but not by us. Well, so far as I knew. Not by me.

After Daryl had stopped going out with Michonne and I, though, he'd completed dozens of supply runs. It wasn't too far out of the realm of possibility that he'd cleared this very house.

The thought sent a tendril of rue snaking up my spine, and I found myself handling the cabinets and drawers more gently, wondering if his had been the last hands to touch them.

 _Jesus. Keep it together, Riley._

I'd made it to the housing development in fairly good time, enough to orient myself as being just north of Senoia. Once I'd seen some road signs promising the 85, I figured that I hadn't been sitting on the banks of Turner Creek at all. And that was fine. Knowing my general location was a significant step forward - even if I was scared of actually taking that step, literally.

My knee-jerk instinct was to continue to head towards Atlanta. I didn't want to actually enter the place, and I wanted to avoid Peachtree City en route, as well, but... _oh, shit_. Why even bother? I had no clue what the plan had been beyond getting the bus out of the prison yard. After that, I assumed we were supposed to rendezvous, do a headcount, mourn the dead and develop a series of next steps. Discuss our options. The city was a threat - it belonged to the dead. Clearly, if I were to leave, I shouldn't try to go too deep into Atlanta. Within the city proper, areas were harder to locate and secure; any potential supplies had likely been destroyed by the bombs or looted a long time ago.

Staying rural was the better option.

But not knowing what had taken place back at the prison just generated more questions. If the Governor survived the attack, he might give up on the actual prison. He might be searching for survivors. He might kill those he found. I was loyal to Rick Grimes; he knew that very well. If he found me, there'd be no questions asked.

"I'm not dead," I whispered. From the bathroom, Peach groaned. Scrabbled at the door. I'd cut off her hands. "I'm not dead."

My choices were slim and murky: staying was smart. I'd locked down an adequate shelter, with the promise of a wide search area for further supplies. I could keep this little house secured. Be safe here. When I went outside, I'd take Peach with me. Her lovely natural perfume would keep other walkers at bay, long enough for me to do quick sweeps through likely houses, take what I needed.

Leaving the confines of my new abode posed significant risks. Enemies, more than the dead, could be stalking the woods. My entire family might have been slaughtered. I may not have been in possession of a single friend in the entire world. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was completely and utterly alone.

If so, Atlanta, Barnesville, Senoia - hell, Timbuktu - none of those places would be safe now. The journey to any of them could kill me.

I sighed in the dimming light, looking around the cluttered living room with dismay. The place was an absolute tip, not that I blamed my unknowing hosts. Dust sat an inch thick on most surfaces; old magazines and newspapers and even a few books were strewn near the fireplace. They'd obviously been burning them for warmth.

"I'm not dead," I said again, a little louder this time, firmer. The area outside had been quiet, still. The walkers in the bathroom had been the only I'd encountered. Likely most had joined up with either the highway or the prison herd.

I had peaches. I had cereal. I had a few cans of green beans and a jar of marshmallow fluff in the kitchen. And even though it wasn't wise, even though it was poor planning - I should've been sweeping the house for supplies, looking to supplement my scant possessions - I shucked off my boots, wrapped myself in a quilt, and fell asleep in someone else's bed, dreaming of the moments that had never come to pass, and of the ones, mired in memory, that would be my only companions in this new life, my new life.

* * *

" _You were so great, you know. Bright and funny. Being with you was like a deep breath of fresh air - ocean air - for the first time in a long damn time. I never laughed so much as when I was with you. Even if it was stupid stuff. Everything's funnier when the world ends, isn't that weird? Like, a dumb joke in the old world makes you sob with laughter in the end one._

 _"I liked that you asked me about my ghosts. I liked that you made me talk about them. About how nice her hair smelled; about how we met. About how I ordered chocolate milk on our first date just to spite him. I liked that you laughed at me._

 _"I should've tried harder for you. I'm so fucking sorry. I was too slow. Too selfish. Story of my life. Well, you only need to listen to these conversations to realize how selfish I am. Every memory I have, it's all about me. All these people I've met and lost, and I can only think of the ways in which they touched my life. Not_ who _they were. Just who they were to me._

 _"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."_

* * *

Daryl had taught me a lot during our time together. He'd shown me what I could eat and what would kill me. Drilled some basic survival tenets into my head. I was nowhere near as skilled as he and Michonne, but my chances were better in the countryside. I knew that. At least here I could forage for mushrooms and berries. Maybe set a few traps. Search the houses and keep watch.

When I woke the next morning, it was with the taste of good intentions on my tongue - and the ghostly brush of lips I'd never kissed.

"I'm not dead."

I scooped out some peaches into a bowl and began tidying up as I ate. If I was going to stay here for any length of time, my brain needed a clean space to think in. To plan.

I decided to keep all my viable supplies in the kitchen, stacked neatly on the island in the middle, so that I could assess what to look for next, and what I could afford to leave behind on my mini supply runs. Okay, good.

It's what Michonne would have done.

One step at a time. And no crying.

 _That_ I couldn't guarantee.

Melancholy had settled into my chest, alleviating the brewing panic somewhat, but not entirely. As I moved through the house, straightening up and even, after a brief, fortifying nap, dragging the two walkers out into the yard - I mourned them. I mourned them all. I staged conversations in my head, sometimes aloud, in which I told them the truth. How I felt.

And in this way, I eulogized the Riley-of-the-prison. I let her go. I let her die. I had become a different person there. Arguably, I'd grown up the most. Even choosing the prison was a mark of my maturity, I thought in retrospect. But things had changed; the tides had turned, and now I was adrift, on my own. Forced the very first time in my life to just figure shit out, all by myself.

I didn't feel grown up, though.

The house directly next to mine yielded a surprising bounty in the form of a length of chain. Whoever had lived there had, at some point, moved the contents of their storage shed into their guest room - shovels, rakes, a hammer, some rolls of twine, duct tape, and the chain. I replaced the broom handle lead with that. Michonne had used chains to restrain her pet walkers, long ago; looping the metal around Peach's neck now beckoned me back towards those days and those nights, when my only comfort were her eyes in the darkness, watchful and quick.

I found water in a brook, crisscrossing the backyards of a few houses down the street. I used the Mason jars and a small collection of Tupperware containers to hold it.

That evening, I ate spoonfuls of marshmallow fluff, studded with cornflakes. I found a copy of _The Moonstone_ on the bookshelves lining the living room. By candlelight, I claimed myself anew: I cried for them, marring the pages with my tears; I shook and trembled and held the anxiety at bay as best I could. I talked to them. I praised them. I remembered them, and then I shoved them away. Tucked them high onto a shelf, and I told them I'd come back, when I could. When it didn't hurt so much. When resentment didn't lick at the edges of my grief. I hoped I'd see them again, but I knew I wouldn't. I knew it.

"I'm not dead."

I wasn't dead, but I slept like I was. Days passed, nights shifting so quickly that one afternoon, I found myself wondering if I'd actually been in the house for years. Checked my reflection in the bathroom, expecting to see wrinkles and gray hairs. Instead, I saw dirt-stained cheeks and a bumpy red scab. A story I knew well: pain and blood, loss and stupid choices. I saw a girl who'd tried to be a warrior, who'd let her own ego, her own desire, her own selfishness guide her. _I'm fine, I'm brave, I'm good to go._

I thought I could fall in love. Thought I ignore a murderer stalking the hills and the fields and the forests. Thought I could drink away the guilt. But I'd been fooling myself for months. _This_ was what the world was now - it was all we could hope for: survival. Food. Supplies. Weapons. Shelter. The hardscrabble claiming of a few more days of life.

* * *

" _You were my first love, you know. Not romantic, no - something different, but no less potent. The first person in my life who demanded only what I could bring, who I could be. You accepted me and celebrated me, with no questions, no requests, no orders and no disappointments._

 _"I wanted to save you. My first choice. My first choice in the new, dying world was to save you. I thought for a while it might have been_ him _, but I remember better now. Saving you saved me, and that's the cruelest kind of logic, isn't it? I put love into the universe, and I bought death. And life, at the same time, but a different kind of life than I'd been envisioning. I miss you so, so damn much._

 _"You know what I've never really done? I've never pictured you here, or there. Never imagined what sharing a cell with you would be like. Never imagined telling you about the lightning in my stomach when he says my name. Never imagined you wrenching the wine away and you soothing my sweaty forehead. You're not here. You're not here. You're dead._

 _"But I'm not. Am I?"_

* * *

Outwardly, cool logic reigned. Inwardly, I was tumbling. Alice down the rabbit hole. Again and again, I repeated my mantra, even as I took the necessary steps to ensure my survival. My little house came into shape, and my routine formed. I woke early, with the sun. I ate from a can of beans or some of the peaches. Then I headed out, Peach in tow, to search some more of the houses. The absence of walkers was actually more frightening than their presence; as time slipped by with no need for kills, I hoped I would be ready and still capable of completing the task when required. How long did it take for nascent reflexes to fade away?

My free time was ample: I read, burning through novels in the space of an afternoon, narrowing my focus to words on a page, images in my brain, unanchored to the darker thoughts. And when I tired of reading, I counted my supplies again. Taking stock of everything I had to keep me alive.

And when I wondered...why was I staying alive?

Everyone was dead. Except me. I had no friends, no family. No Daryl. There was nothing. Nothing to hope for, so why was I still there?

That my thoughts retreated to this corner scared me.

I refocused.

In the guest bedroom, I found a stack of notebooks. Journals and planners unopened and unused. I chose one for the year the world had never lived, the one us survivors had spent just trying to survive. No need for appointments then. Across the dead days, I began to write a story. And that process anchored me, secured me. Kept me there. Reminded me of every step, every choice that had led me to that little two bedroom house outside Senoia. With a dead woman in the bathroom. With peach juice on my fingertips. With untold love on my lips.

I wrote the story. I wrote it out and I looked at it, and I remembered. I remembered why.

* * *

" _I know you never played favourites, but I think if you had, I would've been your favourite, you know? Because I was me, and they were them, and I was more you than her._

 _"What a stupid sentence. Forget that._

 _"I loved you. I loved you so basically, so essentially, that I didn't even realize how much until after. Until I knew I couldn't call you or ask for help. Until I buried you in my mind and moved on to the tasks at hand. I don't think I ever mourned you, all four of you. That was wrong of me, and I'm sorry for that. I tried to drink myself to death over Chloe and RJ and Andrea, and...I just buried you guys. Left you in the past. You belong to the other Riley, the earliest Riley. The Riley who died a long time ago._

 _"I don't if you'd like the other Rileys. I don't. But I hoped he would. I think he did. And I know that you would like him, after a while. It would take time. He's older and not the most loquacious. You're not getting any small talk out of him. But you were the never the type to dress down boyfriends, to make them feel less. You saw the potential. You would've liked RJ. And you would've liked him._

 _"Wanna know a secret, Daddy? You were my favourite, too."_

* * *

Pain burst behind my eyes, as the wound opened again. I pressed back against the bulk of the dead body, pushing and pushing, willing the door to just fucking _shut_. "I'm not dead!" I screamed, lungs scraped raw with the effort of living. "I'm not dead!"

But I was, I was, in a small and secret way, I was dead over and over again. One Riley died, and another kept walking; and then she died, too; and the next adapted and moved on. I had died at the college, I had died on the road, I had died at the CDC and down in the well and in that goddamn closet and at the prison.

I was dying again.

My brain had grown numb in the days and days of my newest life. When the walkers came, I wasn't ready. Peach heard them first, like a guard dog, and she tugged and pulled on the chain. I was knee deep next to a fallen log I'd been scoping out for a few days. On the underside, tucked away from sight, black trumpet mushrooms bloomed from the ground. Daryl had shown me them once before, during one of our early expeditions. They were an absolute bitch to find, but very worth the effort - completely delicious. Daryl had cooked them up with some squirrel one night, and I'd nearly licked my fingers clean afterwards, sorry to see them go.

 _Check damp areas_ , he'd told me. _Mossy and dark_. To this end, I'd checked the logs near the small stream just down and across the street from my little house.

And there they were. A tiny little copse of them. "Some people call 'em the, uh, 'the trumpets of the dead,'" he'd explained over supper that night, listening to my near-groans of delight. "Kinda makes them sound deadly."

But they weren't. They weren't. And I was about to lose my life because of them.

Trumpets of the dead, trumpets of the dead - but Daryl, baby, love of my life, do the dead sing?

"Fuck you! Fuck you!" I wasn't ready for the dead, I wasn't ready for the fight. I had the hammer and a hatchet but my thoughts were sluggish and my movements slow. One had a grip on me before I had even fully registered what was going on, and I had to leave the hoodie behind, stripping out of it so that I could run like hell back towards the house. If I could get into the house, everything would be fine.

But no, there was one there, ready to meet me, waiting on my front step without a care in the world; he didn't have to rush, only lunge, because I was stupid enough to dash right at him, not seeing the other two in my periphery. I needed to get to the house. If I could get inside, get my stuff, I could have a damn chance.

I'd taken my backpack with me, empty save for the notebook I'd been using to write down the story in spare moments. Just that, a pen, and a jar of water. But everything else - clothes, food, towels, the whole breadth and depth of my world as I'd carved it - was inside the house. Stacked on the kitchen island.

I kicked out at his knees, realizing that the move could buy me some time. And it did; he went down like a ton of bricks when a stroke of luck helped me to catch the toe of my boot directly on one knee. That still left the other two.

I dropped the fucking hammer, of course, struggling to loosen it from the tool belt I'd borrowed to hold my weapons. There were butter knives in both of my boots, but those weren't going to do jack shit, and I knew that. Had known that for a while. I pushed, hands tangled in rotting flesh, and green beans came rushing back up my throat at the smell, at the feeling.

A hand, dead and wanting, grasped my hair, and there wasn't too much, but just enough, and my scalp burned and I screamed, I screamed with everything I had, because this was how it was going to end. The whole story. The whole damn mess of it all.

I was going to die with my hands around the doorknob of a stolen house, desperately trying to get inside to retrieve a half-eaten jar of marshmallow fluff.

 _Jesus._

Wrenching forward, I tried to slam my head against the wooden column marking the edge of the front step. Pain was alive, I told myself. Pain was alive. "I'm not dead," I said through gritted teeth, slamming to the side again, this time hitting the mark. The walker's grip pulsed and tensed, and it dropped my hair, giving me the perfect moment to launch forward and open the door.

But the third was close behind, and he was big as hell.

I pushed against the door, trying to find purchase on the smooth tile of the main entryway, to little avail. He was too strong, and I'd been living off dreams and peaches for too long. He pushed in, and more poured in, and I skittered back on my elbows, the backpack helping me to kind of just streak along the floor as I kicked out at a few, making contact with two noses but nothing else.

It was lost.

With a feral cry I wasn't sure belonged to me, I raced towards the second door, through the combined kitchen and dining room. It led out into the backyard, mercifully not yet crawling with walkers. Most of the yards in the development were fenced in, and slamming the back door shut behind me would buy me another few minutes to make a decision. A few minutes to breathe.

Something I could feel: the firm press of leather beneath my fingertips.

Something I could hear: the rumble of his comfort in his chest.

Something I could see: a dark curtain of hair.

Something I could smell: cigarette smoke and oil.

Something I could taste: tears.

I opened my eyes to a world of no choices. A world where I had to put one foot in front of the other and hope for the best. The dead owned this place now. They'd taken it from me. They always would.

And, armed with this knowledge, with a backpack of stories and mushrooms, a hatchet in my hand and a tool belt dropping away behind me - I began to walk into it. To get to know it.

On and on I went, hours and hours, picking up a road to nowhere, skirting through the woods on the very edge of it, one foot in front of the other, silence enveloping me kindly and purely and oh-so-sweetly, and I trudged through it, no words now, no affirmations, no mantra.

My world was quiet and simple for hours, broken only by the cracking of a branch and the low, muttered promise of a single, solitary word: "claimed."

* * *

 ** _Reviews and feedback are so helpful and appreciated. Thanks to those of you who have done so :)_**


	33. Us

_**Chapter XXXIII: Us**_

He pressed his forehead against mine, sweat and tears and hair mingling and twisting together until I could not tell where he ended and I began. And it was right, it was so right, and my heart thudded in my chest so wildly as my hands searched him for truth, for proof he was real beneath my touch - that he was not a figment of a broken, weary mind, summoned to the road by pure desperation. "Claimed," he said again, rougher this time, voice ragged and low, and he flexed and tautened under my ministrations, as I traced the wings on his back, wondering what the word meant. "Claimed."

A polyphonic cry of protest rose up from behind, and it occurred to me then that we were not alone. Vaguely, images from my periphery came into focus, so that as I turned to face our companions, I could register distinct features - near enough to realize I knew none of them.

Faces - haggard and worn, each and every one - watched our reunion with expressions of disbelief and faint disapproval. Panicked, I turned back to Daryl, just to confirm once again that it _was_ him. His mouth twitched with an emotion I couldn't identify - not happiness, no, nor yet relief. Just, something. Something I had not seen before: a troubling sort of worry, a crease between his brows. A shadow behind his eyes.

There were no more words for this moment, other than a few muttered curses as he drew back into his embrace, dropping the plastic bag he'd been holding at our feet and wrapping me tightly in both of his arms, stealing my breath and causing a happy ache to rocket up my spine. "Damnit, girl," he whispered in my ear. " _Fuck_."

We stood there, tangled together, pressed together, the closest we had ever been, and the first sob broke, shattering the stunned resolve I had managed to cultivate over my days of solitude. I wept into his shoulder, then into his neck, and boldly, I grazed my lips against the underside of his jaw, soft as a secret. "I'm not dead," I said tearfully. "I'm not dead."

"No, shit, you ain't, you ain't dead, Riley. Jesus." He gripped my upper arms, pushed me away from him slightly, just two steps. His eyes roamed my body frantically. "You okay? Not bit?"

I shook my head. "I'm fine, I'm not dead." The phrase had lost no potency for me; if anything, the words seemed more necessary than ever. I was certain I'd stumbled into a dream, despite the very real scent of sweat and stale liquor; despite the feel of his skin and the beat of his heart underneath my hand. Any minute now, I would wake up in the strangers' bed back in my little house, knotted up in the quilt and craving a cigarette and a ghost. Not hugging him. Not being held by him. Not being watched by so many unfamiliar eyes.

Or perhaps I was lying to myself altogether, I thought dully. Perhaps I _was_ dead, and this was my heaven, my hell, my afterlife. Caught forever in a moment of unborn love. Permanently ensnared in the heartbeat before a kiss.

This realization stung, and I looked down, down at my feet in their muddy boots, and I tried to account for everything that had happened. I reviewed the facts coolly, watching as they stacked themselves so neatly in my mind's eye: the Governor had come; my people had fled; I'd stumbled through the Tombs; I'd made a lonely home with a dead woman and daydreams; and now I was here, on a road I didn't know, fast in the arms of a man I'd thought dead.

"Hey, you with me?" He caught my chin in one hand, using the thumb of his right to wipe away the tears now streaming down my cheeks. I leaned into his touch, keenly aware that this sudden advance in physical contact was going to have repercussions all too soon: Daryl was not often demonstrative in this way, and I knew it was only sheer relief that had brought on such care.

But it felt so damn good.

His touch lingered on my skin, and I let my gaze travel the contours of his face, settling into the cool metallic heat of his eyes. "I thought…I thought…"

What had I thought? Had I buried him, as I'd done RJ and my mom and my dad? Had I tossed his memory into a hole and walked away, as though he had never lived within the lines of my story? Or had I scrawled him across a page, across the dead days of an unused journal, trapped him in lead and tears?

No. I reached up one hand to trace his jaw. He was real. He was. If this was a dream, or a hell, or a fucking paradise, then I could be happy here. With him. Just us.

"This ain't fair, Joe." The harsh voice broke my reverie, forcing me to drop my hand and twist in Daryl's embrace; he loosened his grip, allowing me to turn more fully and look around at his companions, one of whom - a tall, lanky man with a rattish face - was staring at me with a look of half-hunger, half-loathing. Shivering, I took a step backwards, the sharp scent of danger now causing me to recoil.

The man was angry, eyes blazing even as he turned to another, older one - clearly, Joe. "First fucking woman we've seen in weeks and he gets her all to himself?" Rat-face shot Daryl a glare. "She should at least be shared."

Numbly, my brain tried to process the implications of his words. An old fear, one I hadn't felt since the closet in Woodbury, and before that, the farm, crept into my bones at the blatant threat.

I saw it in most of the faces, that hunger, that craving. I was just a warm body now, and the stink of my sweaty, river-washed skin didn't matter, nor did the scrapes and bruises dotting my limbs. I was not a woman to be wooed or entreated; I was a thing to be taken, right there on the road. _Claimed_ , Daryl had said. It was no term of endearment, no welcome home. It was a word of warning, and not to me. Inwardly, I cringed at this reduction of my humanity and agency; outwardly, I wiped away the remnants of my tears and balled my fists, determined to make some show of resistance.

Joe, gray-haired and world-weary, bowed his head for a moment, and I thought of judges, of hangmen, of rebel sailors at the plank. My life hung in the balance of his silence; Daryl's too, because I knew he wouldn't let anything happen to me, not without a fight.

"Well, Len, I see it this way," he said, looking back up to meet my eyes in particular. "Daryl said the word. He made the claim. And you know what that means. Same as the rabbit this morning."

"This bitch ain't no rabbit!" Rat-faced Len protested. "This is a real, warm c -"

"Shut the fuck up, man!" Daryl shoved me behind him, and I didn't say a goddamn word, stunned into a reluctant passivity. "I made the claim. You don't put a finger on her, you got it?"

Rage thrummed through his body, and he fairly quivered with the tide of it. "You touch her," he continued, voice shaking just a little, with that quiet fervour he deployed only when most riled, "you touch her, and I'll kill you."

I resisted the urge to throw my arms around him, bury my face against his back. There was nothing remotely romantic about this threat and the violence he promised - at least by the standards of the old world. But here and now - in what was probably highly maladaptive, to be honest - I heard care. I heard love.

"All right, all right, ease up, there, friend." Joe clapped Daryl on the shoulder good-naturedly, as though we were in a grocery store lot arguing over the perfect parking space. "No need to get so worked up. You claimed the girl; she's yours. If you ever feel in the sharing mood, though, you be sure to let us know, won't you?"

I gagged.

Decidedly less romantic now.

"Claimed" was primal; it was basic. I'd claimed shotgun against my brothers; claimed good seats at a movie theatre; claimed the most appetizing slices of pizza at meal hall. I'd claimed weapons, too, but to hear myself being debated, reduced to sexual function, was too much to bear. I pressed my eyes closed, hoping to avoid crying in front of these animals over this. I knew Daryl didn't mean it as they did; I knew I'd be receiving an awkward, shy explanation later on, but for now, I had only those words, and the slim insurance of safety provided by his verbal claim.

Over his shoulder, I could see that the other men were not satisfied by this resolution, Len in particular. His steady, furious gaze burned into me, and Riley of long ago would have cowered behind Daryl, fisted her hands in his vest and allowed him to bear the brunt of this danger all on his own. But now I stepped to the side and forward, adjusting the straps of my backpack against my shoulders, fixing my own glare upon Len, and then Joe, and then each of the remaining strangers until my message, I hoped, was clear: touch me, and _I'll_ kill you.

* * *

Claiming was a way of life for the men, Daryl explained that evening, as we sat awkwardly within the abandoned garage we were, as Joe said, to call our abode for the night. The empty vehicles surrounding us had already been claimed by the other men, leaving Daryl to sheepishly apologize for us having to sleep on bare concrete.

To be honest, though, I couldn't give a shit. I was with him. I wasn't alone anymore. And even though - as I shifted uncomfortably for the millionth time in half an hour - I was missing the soft mattress of my little house, not to mention the squishy yielding of the couch beneath me, just the right balance between firm and soft (perfect for reading and mentally escaping a crumbling world), I was strangely, quietly, vividly happy to be with him.

We talked in circles for a while, about Joe and the rest of the group, as Daryl went through the basic points of their system: "Tell the truth, claim everything you want...and stick with me," he added firmly, tacking on his own unique requirement.

I couldn't help but smile, but it was a wan, flimsy thing, and it caused him to look away so abruptly and jerkily that I knew it was time to change the subject. "Hungry?" I asked breezily, hoping to claim some normalcy for myself, just for a few minutes. Reaching over to grab my backpack, I unzipped it to reveal my little collection of black trumpet mushrooms.

"Claimed!" Daryl said sharply, before any curious eyes could turn our way.

We ate in silence, and not for the first time, I wondered at the changes in him. He was angry, yes, but now quietly so, as though worn down by the weight of it. His whole presence seemed _heavy_ , somehow, as though he were carrying a load I couldn't yet see. I wanted to talk about something more than Joe or mushrooms; I wanted to know what had happened.

The world still seemed dreamy to me, a little blurry. Facts were simple and known, of course, but anything beyond the knowledge that I was no longer alone, that I was back on the road, and that I was with _him_ \- well, they just didn't seem to register very well. The entire sensation brought me back to nine years old, when my school had taken us on a trip to an aquarium in the city - I'd poked my head up through a glass bubble in the base of a large tank, kneeling as I watched a strange world swim and swirl above me. My classmates had complained behind me, I recalled now, pushing and shoving to get their turn, and my teacher had finally reached a bony hand underneath the smooth plastic barrier to tap my shoulder and bring me back to _my_ world.

I'd been an intruder then, peering out at a place that did not belong to me, and almost as though fortune was balancing out the odds, everything seemed rushed and fuzzy - there was no way for me to see every fish, to trace the movements of every creature and plant within. I swivelled my head this way and that, desperate to catalogue as much as I could, to little avail. There were secrets there I wasn't to know, though they were laid out right in front of me.

Sitting on the concrete floor with Daryl, surrounded by strangers, I felt the same. As though I were poking my head into a foreign world, trying to understand the parameters of my new context. Things were moving too quickly, darting about around my head, and I was struggling to grasp onto something concrete. Any minute now, I feared, someone would be pulling me away, away from him.

I just wanted to know what happened.

"D," I ventured (deciding that the use of the nickname might help draw us both back into our old way together). "D, what happened at the prison?"

Snores, both soft and grating, had begun to rise in a discordant hum from the vehicles around us, though it was still light out. I figured this meant Joe's group would be heading out early in the morning, and so while it probably wasn't wise to delve too deeply into an emotionally-wrenching conversation when we should be sleeping, I couldn't help myself. I had to know.

"Governor came."

He didn't look at me as he grunted; merely popped another mushroom into his mouth and chewed quickly, reaching over to adjust the garbage bag more securely by his side.

"I knew that," I said. "But I mean, what happened after? The bus left, right? Was everybody on it?"

Daryl's gaze was dark when I found it, shadowed by his long hair. "Don't know. Saw it leave. _You_ were supposed to be on it."

I worried at my bottom lip and scooted a little closer to him on the floor. He held pain in the palm of his hand, I knew that well enough, and he was resisting slapping me full across the face with it. These terse, sparse replies would end soon, just as his touching had. I was toeing a line, I knew that - nudging him too close to the limits of his patience, of his own resolve. We had just lost our home, everything we knew and had worked to build together. We had lost people, too. And finding each other was still new, still raw, still draped in doubt and wonderment.

And there I was, pushing him towards pain. Demanding him to feel something neither one of us wanted to feel.

"How did you get out?" I looked up at his question, struggling to sort out an answer. The truth seemed so lengthy, so ludicrous. But he didn't seem mad that I obviously hadn't been on the bus. Just quietly resigned, almost as though he'd been expecting it.

Behind us, a body shifted in the bed of a white truck. Dimly, I recalled that Len had claimed it before Daryl or I could. I wondered if he was listening, or waiting for Daryl to fall asleep. My fists tightened in my lap, nails digging into the untested flesh of my palms. _Let him fucking try_.

I told the story as simply as possible, watching as a vein in his neck visibly popped out when I explained that I'd turned back for more supplies, and then had gotten trapped in the storage cells. I told him about Peach, about gutting up, about the creek and the jars and the walk to the development. I told him about the marshmallow fluff and the long, lonely nights and my little house. I told him about the black trumpet mushrooms and his voice in my head and then I was spent, tears coursing down my cheeks for the second time that day and he reached out a hand to cup my knee, letting me cry as I took stock of everything as it was now. As I smashed through the glass and swam into my new world.

"I need to take a piss," he grumbled after a minute or two, and self-consciously, I scrubbed at my face with the hem of my t-shirt as he stood.

"Okay, I'll, uh, make us a place to sleep." It was going to be a hard night, I figured - _literally_. I thought again of the bed and the couch - if we were there together, I would have let him take the former, just for tonight, but I would've kept that quilt for myself, why hadn't I brought it with me?

"No," he said. "No, you come with me." I looked up, startled. One hand was outstretched, hanging right in front of my face. We didn't hold hands. Occasionally, he'd led me by the hand, grabbed me and pulled me along behind him, but those were in tense moments.

Nevertheless, I slipped my hand into his, allowing him to help me to my feet - legs prickling with pins and needles - and that's when I realized why we were going together: Joe was awake, propped in the front seat of a mouldering station wagon, puffing away on a cigarette as he watched the two of us. "I told you," Daryl whispered, lowering his lips to my ear, "you gotta stick with me. We ain't among friends here, girl."

I nodded once, a flush blooming up my neck at his proximity.

Outside, everything felt right. The forest was a safe place for us, a familiar space where we could simply be ourselves. Daryl led me further into the trees, and the cool green was a sanctuary, a momentary reprieve from the stress and pressure of those strangers. It had been a long time since we'd had to meet so many new people, and I just wanted to be with him for a few minutes. Because I wasn't done pushing.

He stayed within my sight as he stood in front of a tree, the clink of his belt clearly indicating that he had actually had to relieve himself and was not just making an excuse for us to leave the garage. I turned, trying to give him some privacy.

I was with _Daryl_ , I reminded myself. I was with him, and I was not dead. This morning I had woken by myself, had set out to forage for mushrooms by myself, had nearly died trying to return for some goddamn marshmallow fluff - and now I was with him. Damnably, tears pricked again at the corners of my eyes, and I wondered for a moment how I had any left in me.

"Hey." He rested one hand on my shoulder, and despite my awareness of his limitations, I pressed myself against him once more, nestling my face against his shoulder, my arms winding carefully around his chest. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay."

"I thought you were dead," I mumbled tearfully. "I thought I'd lost everyone, and that it was just me, and I can't believe you're here now. That I'm with you."

My words were plaintive and treading way too close to pathetic for my liking, but he didn't seem to mind. One hand stroked tentatively down the length of my back, and I shivered against him, and that was it - the hard limit. He stepped backwards, clearing his throat and looking anywhere but at me.

Loss was cloying on the air between us, rippling in the breeze. I wanted to brush it away, linger in this space, step back into his arms and have him become the type of man who knew the precise way I needed him right now. But if that were true, I reasoned, rubbing my own arms and looking down at the ground - if that were true, then he wouldn't be Daryl. And maybe it was crazy, but I would take a thousand moments of awkward affection from him than a lifetime of ease and predictability with just about anyone else.

 _Oh, shit_.

I would. I would. I would take him and this dance in this liminal space, would spend the rest of my life, however long that may be, craving snatches of love and comfort from him, as much as he could give me. His hand stroking down the length of my back felt more intimate than any other encounter I'd ever had, because of what it meant - it meant _I mattered_. That my tears had moved him. That he felt something, too, even if he couldn't

I'd wondered for a long time, even trying out the words on my tongue to test them, to taste them, to see how they sounded. In my fever dreams, I'd weighed the truth. With Sasha, I'd come close to saying it. And when I'd watched him leave to face the Governor, not knowing what was about to happen, I had almost said it aloud.

I loved him.

Damn me for realizing it in the aftermath of the second worst tragedy of my life, but there you have it.

I _was_ in love with Daryl Dixon.

An unfamiliar sense of daring swept through me then, emboldening me, whispering in my ear that now was a good a time as any, that our days were not guaranteed, that I _needed_ to say it, _needed_ to tell him - that he needed me to do it, too. "D," I murmured, ready to say it, and fuck the consequences. "Daryl, I…"

"I lost Beth."

* * *

They had escaped together, the two of them, fleeing from the prison yard after the fight had reached its climax. Daryl had seen that the prison was lost and that the bus had already left; he knew he had a responsibility to save her, to find someplace she could be safe. She was, after all, just a kid.

And in the days to follow, when they'd realized how bad things were, they had found that safety first in an abandoned house, then in a funeral home. Just when Daryl had thought things were going their way, he'd inadvertently opened the door to a group of walkers, and in the ensuing chaos, Beth had been taken right in front of him, bundled into a car painted with a white cross. The shaky timbre of his voice plainly said he still could not believe it.

"She was there, and then she wasn't." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I chased the trail as long as I could, but...but I lost 'em. And then Joe and the others were there, and I had nowhere else to go."

Beth, Beth, she of the golden hair and dulcet voice. A song in motion. An eighteen year old girl, broken before her time, still shining bright through the shattered lines of who she could have been, if the world had been right. I closed my eyes, willing myself not to cry again. After all, we weep for the dead; for the living, we hope.

I didn't touch him this time; he'd had more than enough, and had given me too much today. Instead, I smiled at him. I fucking smiled.

"We'll find her, D, we will," I said heartily. "We found each other, didn't we? The world's smaller now; we'll find her."

I might have been lying, of course. Yes, the world was smaller now, but it was crueler, too. Sophia's death still weighed heavily upon him; young girls did not last long on their own. Hell, nobody really lasted long on their own. We needed each other. Perhaps, though, there was a chance that whoever had taken Beth had done so for her own good. Perhaps they hadn't seen Daryl, only a teenager running from a horde of walkers, and they'd simply been trying to help. Maybe even as we spoke, as his guilt simmered so sourly in the aftermath of his confession - maybe they were helping her to look for him.

It might have been the high from finding him, or the joy I felt at finally, _finally_ realizing that I was fucking in love with him - I'm not sure why everything seemed like it was going to be okay. I'm not sure why I thought we'd stumble upon Beth and some benevolent strangers just as simply as I'd walked into his arms. I'm not sure why the smile wouldn't leave my face, even as the fates of so many other people I'd cared for were still up in the air. All I knew was that I had him, and I had hope, and goddamnit, somehow, somehow - I had love.

The sun was getting lower; it would soon be time to head back into the garage. And this moment would be gone; I knew he didn't want to talk about Beth in front of them. "Yeah, we found each other," he agreed, sending a thrill down my spine. "But there's...there's somethin' else I've gotta tell you."

* * *

He held me in the fading light, as I sobbed, heart crumbling in my chest and pain singing through my veins.

He wouldn't tell me how it happened, only that it had, and that there had been little doubt as to the outcome. _Hershel_. Slaughtered in front of his daughters, by Michonne's side, as the prison population watched. _Not Hershel_. Not a kind old man. Not like that. Rightly, he should have slipped away in his bed, fifteen or twenty years from now, dying in a gentle dream. Not bloody and violently on a fucking battlefield.

"We gotta go back in, Riley." He was right, he was right, of course he was right. We needed to sleep. But now thoughts were disjointed and blurry in my mind. I was back in the aquarium, back in the glass bubble, and the world didn't make sense.

Daryl took me by the hand, brought me down to the concrete, and tucked the backpack beneath my head. I registered these events with a cold detachment, as though they were happening to some other girl. And if that was true, then maybe some other girl was hurting, too. Maybe some other girl was in love with him. Maybe some other girl could _feel_ all of this, could contain the tumbling, twisting, goddamn storm of emotion in the pit of her stomach, but I couldn't.

I slept the deep, ardent sleep of the brokenhearted that evening, tears drying in tracks on my face. I did not dream of corpses and death, nor did I dream of the prison and the people we had lost - no, I dreamt of my little house. Of the couch. Of the supplies on the counter. Of the books on the shelf and the notebook I wrote in and the simple, ignorant bliss I had taken for granted. Back there, everyone was tucked high and safe on a shelf in my mind, nestled in close like the books I burned through, and nobody was really dead and nobody was really hurt, because I didn't know either way. It was my own Schrodinger's cat of a life. And hadn't it been good? Why had I left?

In the morning, I woke to the scent of cinnamon and sweat, and rolled over to see Daryl lying flat on his back, working a twirl of bark between his lips. "Morning," he said, voice raspy with sleep. "You good?"

Sleepily, I queued up a response: _Yes, I'm fine. I'm not dead. I'm good. Everything's okay._ But I never got the chance to verbalize it; Len's angry voice cut clear through the early morning quiet of the garage. "You've gotta be kidding me. Christ."

Daryl and I sat up in unison as Len approached, looming over the two of us, face twisted in resentment. "Give it here," he snapped, hand outstretched.

I tensed, looking rapidly from Daryl to Len, trying to figure out what was going on. "You step back," Daryl said, beginning to stand.

"My half was in the bag," Len continued. "Now it's gone. Now ain't nobody around here interested in no half a damn cottontail except you. Ain't that right?"

 _A rabbit? A goddamn rabbit?_

"You're the only one still thinkin' about that crap." Daryl swung his arm threatenly to punctuate his words, and admittedly, Len did take a half step back, before glancing down to me, and the plastic bag just next to my hand on the floor.

"Empty your bag."

Daryl snatched up the bag and I stood in the same motion. "I said step back," he growled again, and I put my hand on his arm, nestling it in the crook of his elbow just as I had done on the rooftop during his confrontation with Bob. He was heating up, angry and defensive, and I wanted him calm. I wanted to resolve this with logic, because he'd been pretty damn clear about how these men handled these kind of disputes.

Clearly, Joe had the same idea. He seized the bag roughly from Daryl's grasp, simply holding it aloft for a moment. "Did you take his rabbit, Daryl?" he asked calmly. "Just tell me the truth."

"I didn't take nothing." Len glared at his response.

"What do we got here?" The three of us watched as Joe turned the plastic bag upside down, shaking it a little to dislodge the contents. A shirt tumbled out, several more twists of cinnamon bark, and then finally, with a wet thump, the top half of a small brown rabbit.

My dinner rose to my throat on a tide of both disgust and fear. "Well, look at that," Joe said, with an audible note of resignation in his voice.

 _Okay, fine_ , I thought frantically. _We'll just leave. Let's go. We don't need them, we don't need this. They'll let us walk away, won't they?_ I tightened my grip on his arm. Of course he hadn't; he wasn't the type. No matter how little he may have thought of these men and their stupid-ass rules, he would never risk our lives for half of a goddamn rabbit. He wouldn't. He just wasn't that stupid.

"You put that there, didn't you?" Daryl said, swinging his arm and loosening my grip. He took a step towards Len. "When I went out to take a piss?"

"You lied," Len retorted.

"Didn't you?" Daryl shoved out at him hard and I yelped. _No, no, no_.

"Daryl…"

Len's hand shot out, pushing Daryl square in the chest. "You lied. You stole. We gonna teach this fool or what, Joe?" he asked, a manic look brewing in his eyes.

"Whoa, whoa," Joe said slowly, taking a step between the two men. I wrapped one hand around Daryl's wrist, hoping to keep him under some semblance of control for whatever came next. He glanced down at me with a storm in his gaze, and I opened my mouth, preparing to beg him to leave, for us to just go, but Joe wasn't done. "Now, Daryl says he didn't take your half of the rabbit. So we got a little conundrum here. Either he's lying, which is an actionable offense, or…" And here Joe trailed off, chuckling as he turned to Len.

"You didn't plant it on him like some pussy, punk-ass, cheating, coward cop, did you?" he asked. "'Cause while that wouldn't be specifically breaking the rules, it'd be disappointing."

"It would," Len agreed with a sharp nod, breaking his cold, shared glare with Daryl to look at Joe. "I _didn't_."

Joe clapped him lightly on the arm. "Good," he said, and I closed my eyes, fingers intertwining with Daryl's as he squeezed my hand tightly. _Let's go, please, please, please_ , I wanted to say, but my mouth was a desert and my limbs ice, frozen to the spot and the moment. They beat each other, Daryl had explained, when someone broke the rules.

I tugged on his hand, wanting him to lead me blindly from this place, but the thick thud of skin against skin forced me to open my eyes, even as Daryl tried to sweep me back behind him, away from the fray. Len lay prostrate upon the floor, curled into his own pain. "Teach him a lesson, gents," Joe ordered, as the rest of the group moved in. "He's a lying sack of shit. I'm sick of it. Teach him all the way."

Stunned, I watched the others kick the fallen man, driving their boots deep into the softest parts of his body, gaining in intensity with each grunt, each groan. Deep in my stomach, pity clenched, usurped quickly by a fearful logic: this could have been Daryl. So easily. Hell, it could have been me. "I saw him do it," Joe said, clucking his tongue slightly as I flinched in response to a particularly loud cry. Probably without even realizing it, Daryl rubbed his thumb once over the base of my own.

"Why didn't you try to stop him?" he asked angrily.

Joe just shrugged. "He wanted to play that out; I let him. You told the truth," he added, jabbing a finger towards Daryl's face. "He lied. You understand the rules. He doesn't."

The cacophony of boots against flesh was deafening now, mixed with rapidly escalating howls of pain. As though there weren't a man being beaten to death just next to us, Joe nonchalantly tossed the rabbit towards Daryl, who caught it easily, releasing my hand a split-second before the thing was actually in the air. "Looks like you get the head, too."

* * *

The day was young, and beautiful. But I was back in the glass bubble, merely plodding along behind Daryl as we left the garage, mushrooms and cinnamon in hand. I knew that Len was dead, beaten and bloodied and tossed in a heap by the stairs outside; I knew that the weather was warm; I knew that my feet were tired and that the hours of rest had done little to soothe me.

I knew that the road ahead was hard, and it was leading to nowhere.

I knew that Hershel was dead.

" _Come on, Daryl,_ " I wanted to say - oh, God, I was desperate to say it. " _Let's turn around and go back to my little house. We can wash our hands clean and fresh and I'll read to you the story of my dark, dead days and I'll kiss you goodnight and good morning. Nothing bad will touch us, nothing bad will come to the door. And we'll eat the trumpets of the dead and I can break from the glass bubble and it'll be you and I, you and I, just us, just us._ "

But those thoughts were craggy and steep, a long way to fall. One foot in front of the other, that was the world now, I'd learned that a day ago, or a year, or a lifetime - or maybe I'd always known. The little flutterings of panic were blossoming now, simmering, fanning out into a rich plumage within me. Knocking me off my feet a little. Just a little. Nudging me towards a precipice not yet within my sights.

I walked in heady, drunken thoughts, though my mouth was still dry. I tramped through a meadow behind them, Daryl and Joe, as they shared a flask and Daryl told him not to offer me a sip. Like I would have accepted, anyways, I thought, with a mutinous glare he did not see. How could he hold me one moment, then push me away the next? Dismissing me. The girl who couldn't handle her shit.

What was that? Anger? Towards him? All I had left in the world, the only soul to step from the shelf and wrap me tight in his living arms?

"You seen this before?"

We had reached the train tracks again, Daryl stopping so abruptly I couldn't help but crash into his back.

"Oh, yeah." Joe nodded at the road sign, scrawled over as it was with a veritable maze of train tracks, of promises. "I'll tell you what it is, it's a lie. Ain't no sanctuary for all."

But the sign said so: _Sanctuary for all. Those who arrive, survive. Terminus_.

The word stuck out, a jagged shard of memory catching on my tongue. We'd heard it before, in the cramped confines of the car during the supply run just before...the end. I closed my eyes, beckoned it closer and into being - and then I was back, pressed between Bob and Ty, the thick odour of sweat and desperation, and the underlying miasma of my brewing sickness, clouding the small space. And a voice, a voice with inflection and tone - it curled from the radio, a talking ghost. Chilling us all. Posing the possibility that life existed beyond what we'd carved out. But we'd lost it, hadn't we? Forgotten? Between the flu, our losses, and the attack, that voice from the radio had fallen into dim memory. Until now.

"... guys like you and me with open arms," Joe was saying, moving further up the tracks, leaving Daryl and I to simply stare, dumbfounded, at the map.

"Do you, um," I said, my voice hoarse with disuse and tender hopes, "do you remember?"

"Uh-huh." He chewed the inside of his lip. "Okay. You good?"

Good? Damn it, I felt like I was floating - there was that edge again, my toes pressed too close to oblivion. The glass bubble around me, and I was drowning in disjointed metaphors. I hadn't been good, not truly, in a long, long time, but our language was lies, small ones and sweet ones, so I eased my lips into a hopeful smile and I shrugged my shoulders. "Yeah. I guess."

"That where we're headed?" Daryl asked, once we'd caught up with the main group.

"So now you're asking?"

Daryl glanced over at me; I offered him a small, encouraging nod. "That's right."

"We were in a house, minding our own business," Joe explained slowly, resignedly. "And this walking piece of fecal matter was hiding in the home. Strangled our colleague, Lou, and left him to turn. Lou came at all of us. _He_ lit out. We tracked him to these tracks, one of those signs, and thus we've got a destination in mind."

"You see his face?"

"Only Tony." Joe gestured to one of the men up ahead. "That's enough for a reckoning."

Daryl and I exchanged a glance; their demonstration this morning left little to the imagination as to their particular definition of a "reckoning." I guess all I could hope for was that we reached Terminus, whatever the hell that was, before running into Lou's killer.

"Claimed." Swiftly, before the man just ahead of us - he might have been Tony, actually, what the hell did I know? - Daryl reached down to tug loose a small plant, growing by the side of the tracks. Just one red vegetable was visible, but it was enough to cause maybe-Tony to glower at us both; he'd seen it a second before Daryl had, but had been slower to grab it.

"Here." He ripped the radish from the green leaves, offering it to me in the palm of his hand. "Eat up."

I paused on the tracks, mind buzzing and cheeks flushing, fingers pressing against the bubble in my brain. Here was clarity; here was love. And in a gesture old for us, a mark of our history, a depth and breadth Joe and his men could not understand, I plucked the radish from his hand, took one bite, and then gave it back. A kiss with no contact, I'd once called it, as we traded a cigarette back and forth, even when we had plenty and didn't need to share.

Without a word, he popped it between his lips, and then jerked his head towards the others. We needed to keep going, keep walking, leaving loss and dark questions in our wake. Why we were still with them, I did not know, but at least we were together, and when we walked, we walked in tandem, side by side, heading to sanctuary. Because those who arrived would survive.

Right?

* * *

 _ **Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Feedback is always appreciated :)**_


	34. So, So Much

**Chapter XXXIV: So, So Much**

Time lengthened and shuddered, binding us tight in an unwilling embrace. We measured minutes in footsteps, in cramps, and in train tracks. Joe liked to stop early, and to start early, too - so that it seemed to me night was pale sunlight, and morning a lingering moon. Food was scarce, but Daryl did his best, bringing me handfuls of berries from the roadside, urging me to drink when he found a likely source. Two days passed in this way, my lips stained purple and my hands beginning to shake, as I dipped deeper and deeper into that damned glass bubble, as it thickened around me, obscuring even innate sensations. When my stomach clenched and growled in hunger, when my tongue seemed heavy and dry in my mouth, it was Daryl who responded.

"Eat this," he'd say, pressing blackberries and then blueberries into the palm of my hand, watching me steadily until he was satisfied they were all gone. He found some wild carrots one afternoon, and though they were skinny and chewy, he made me eat the whole bunch, contenting himself with some more cinnamon and a bit of the rabbit - which I staunchly refused to eat.

It had almost gotten him killed, after all.

As we walked, the bulk and breadth of too many things unsaid strode between us, knocking our hand together at odd moments and stealing my breath at others. Hershel was dead, Beth was missing, and the rest of my world had been firmly cast into a dark shadow. Those facts beat out beneath my feet, and I wanted to talk, wanted to ask questions, but there was nothing to say, not really. Daryl was in pain, I knew that much, and the care he was providing was just about all he could manage, under the circumstances. Our future now was murky and dull, where it had once been concrete (in more ways than one) and bright: we would have built up the prison, secured our defenses, brought in more and more people, maybe even physically expand our territory. We had been a part of a burgeoning, supportive community - ushered it through the labour pangs, brought it to life in the quiet, shocked aftermath of a reality torn apart. Now? Now we were just two more members of Joe's group, claiming our way through an anesthetized existence.

Joe and Tony kept their eyes peeled for any signs of the man who had killed Lou. At this point, though, I didn't really care if we _did_ find the guy - didn't give much of a thought to what might happen in that situation. A sense of numbness was encroaching, slipping silkily through my veins, rendering me scarily close to an automaton: following where they led, putting the berries in my mouth when Daryl said to, fairly dropping into a dreamless sleep at the end of our days.

Daryl helped them track a little, and after the first full day, suggested leaving the railroad. There was some initial protest, but the clues in the ground and the trees (which I was unable to translate) were enough to convince him that we needed to cut through the woods, following the faint trail that _might_ have belonged to the killer. We walked until dusk, Daryl's eyes trained to the forest floor; at the end of the second, Joe halted when we'd reached a small clearing. "Get us a perimeter boys, and we'll call it a night," he said, beginning to notch out a bed for himself in the hard ground. "Claimed."

"Claimed," I said quietly, dropping my bag near a log and kicking away a few stray branches to form a space wide enough for both Daryl and I. We were sleeping closer than we ever had before, hands wandering in the night, so that I'd woken up just that morning with my fingers flat against the heat of his bare chest, beneath his shirt. He'd jerked away from me as I pretended to still be asleep, stomping away to relieve himself, presumably, behind the remnants of an old, crumbling hunting blind.

Despite the awkwardness of our mornings together now, we remained close in the dark, both craving a return to our old life, the walls of our cell and the easy rhythm of our days together. Okay, so maybe it hadn't always been easy, I reflected, taking out my notebook and shaping a few more memories on the page. There'd been arguments, and fear, and my drinking. Unspoken feelings trembling just under the surface, threatening always to either burst or sink. But there had been so many goddamn _good_ moments, too - so many simple mornings of breakfast together, side by side; planning a run; making him laugh. The bitter kiss of a shared cigarette against my lip, wondering if those quick, unnecessary exchanges were most physically intimate he'd been with someone in a while.

Could we have that again at Terminus, I wondered? Could we build something just as sweet, as easy? That was our destination, I knew that. The avenging homicide along the way was Joe's plan, not ours. And when we'd heard the offer on the radio, our group had not immediately had time to ponder the chances, the hope, the thought of what another established community might mean for us at the prison. Our world had gone to hell so soon after, and hadn't let up since. But now, in the fading light of this bruised evening, I gave myself over to questions no one could yet answer.

If Terminus, whatever it was, and the people who had sent out the message did accept us, Daryl and I could have purpose again, not to mention support and safety. It was a bitch to be alone these days. That had been one of the first things he had ever said to me, the truest welcome he could offer.

Returning to a sense of normalcy would be good for us both. Well, as much "normal" as we could grasp at, without them. The prospect shimmered, a mirage in this desert, and I tried to imagine working again, counting supplies and making lists; falling asleep on an actual bed; trading a cigarette. Sharing a life. Hell, just building a life.

"Here," he said, settling beside me on the ground, back pressed against the log, a mirror of me. I hadn't heard him approach, but relished the weight of him against me all the same. Daryl's physical presence was a continual surprise to me, the only real thing that could pull me away from the glass. He was there; he was alive. _I'm not dead_.

His hand was outstretched again, a nest of blackberries staining his palm. Rivulets of dark juice trickled down his wrist as he dropped them into my cupped hands, and I dumped them into my mouth all at once, tipping my head back to easy their way. He smiled, sucking the sweet stain from his fingers; I watched in some disbelief, something fanning in my stomach that I did not have the time nor safety to indulge in right now.

"Thanks." I shifted, self-consciously swiping at my lips to ensure I hadn't missed anything. "Did you eat something, too?"

He nodded, glancing around at the others, settling in for the night. I could tell he was already more relaxed, likely because we were in the woods. The train tracks were exposed, leaving us vulnerable, even as they led us to Terminus. Going cross-country was more his style, and the approach had the added bonus of keeping Joe and his men happy, thinking we were well on our way to catching up with the quarry.

Daryl let his shoulders roll forward a little, shuffling down on the log a couple of more inches, looking for all the world like a guy relaxing after a long damn day. He just needed a cigarette - which, I was happy to say, I could provide.

I took my own drag first, and then offered it over. He accepted without a word, but that was fine. That was familiar. And it was because of this familiarity, his visible relaxation, that I felt emboldened enough to frame my next question, though he beat me to it: "Berries ain't gonna be enough, you know. If I, uh, got you a squirrel or something, would you eat it?"

Another puff, and I thought about it: I wasn't hungry. That was the strange part. Of course, I still felt the sensations of hunger, very clearly. That hollow ache, a shakiness that seemed to be deep within my bones - but I wasn't hungry. I didn't crave anything, didn't give a shit if the berries were sour or sweet. When he offered me the squirrel, all I could think of was the day in the ravine, and I smiled. Despite the pain, despite the danger, that had been a good day, in so many small ways.

Clearly, Daryl took that a positive response, nodding again and promising that, in the morning, he'd get me one. It amused me that he said that so simply, as though he were planning to run out to the store to get me a treat - that hunting down and bagging a small, speedy, secretive animal could be such an easy task. Then again, this _was_ Daryl - it probably could be that simple.

Making him even slightly happy had me feeling a little better, and this, combined with my burgeoning sense of confidence and awareness, had the next words tripping from my tongue: "I've been thinking about Terminus," I said, picking at a new hole in my jeans. "About getting there. Maybe...maybe we should wait."

The thought was young, and born entirely of fear. While the promise of an established community was thrilling and bright, the prospect of a whole new world of people to care for and lose was...well, I just didn't know if I was ready to go there just yet. Not again. I liked the smallness of it being just the two of us, since I didn't care about Joe and the others. When it was just him and I, the worries were quiet, the fear tameable. I could reach out a hand in the middle of the night and know that the only person I had left in the world was still breathing; I could ask him a question as he walked and remember a thousand questions I'd asked before, as we rode on Honey's back. With Daryl, there was history and memory. There was a version of me I wanted to get back to, though I'd buried her a while ago.

And with him, there was love. Shaky and new, of course, but it was there. On my part, at the very least. If we could have some time, even just a few days or weeks - some time together, to sort things out, maybe Terminus could be exactly what we needed. _After_.

We hadn't yet had time to mourn, not properly, and I wanted to do that - together. I wanted to be able to think about them without the sharp edges of a shattered heart stabbing through my flesh. I wanted to be able to remember with him. Those first few days in my little house had been such a struggle, as I oscillated between grief and hope, all by myself. If the people I loved were truly dead, then I wanted to eulogize them with someone who had loved them, too.

Grief can't be halved, but it can be attended. And it's a far, far better thing to step into the full press of sadness with a familiar hand in yours, than to weather it alone.

He stiffened at my words, the cigarette smouldering away between his fingers. "What do you mean?"

I sighed and leaned closer to him, not quite resting against him, but certainly letting him know I needed the proximity. "It's just...what if it's too much? For us, I mean. Like, if there's too many people, maybe it would be better for us to take some time. Find a house or something, like I had after the prison. Someplace quiet. Just you and me."

Intimacy was draped over every word, but the last four made him visibly start. "Sorry," I said quickly, leaning away. "I meant that I...I, uh…"

"You don't wanna go to Terminus? It could be good for you. You'll be safe there." He passed me the cigarette; started chewing on his thumb, a nervous habit.

"We could be safe on our own, too." I bit my lip. "Just for a while. I want a break...from them. And from any new people."

I deliberately tried to keep my tone low. I couldn't be sure how Joe and the others would react to my plan. They didn't seem to care too much about me once they'd realized Daryl had no intention of passing me around, but some of them genuinely appeared to be impressed by him, albeit begrudgingly so. They tolerated my presence as a result. It was likely that if I did plan on leaving, they would have no real problem with it. But if I tried to sway Daryl away? Well, I wasn't sure.

Even in a group like this, composed so neatly of hardbitten survivors, Daryl was valuable. He could read nature like a book, finding his way through the green and impenetrable forest as easily as I had once navigated my own neighbourhood. His value to me, though, extended far beyond that. I wanted to be with him, and no one else. I wanted to ford ahead into a new life with him. Just us.

But God, couldn't he pick up on what I was asking for? A couple weeks of quiet companionship. I knew that the mystery of Beth's loss weighed heavily upon him, knew that the fall of the prison was absolutely eating away at him inside. He had lost his home and friends, too, after all. Taking care of me and moving towards Terminus were mere distractions from the true tangle of feelings inside of him. I knew that because I knew him. He was heartbroken; he didn't know how to deal with it.

I could help him, though, with time and privacy. And more to the point, I wanted us to be selfish for a few days. Joe's system, though not without a brutal logic, did not accommodate emotional introspection, something we both needed. I was tired of them. Tired of their oversimplification, of their survival-of-the-fittest mindset. I wanted to go back, back to living and thriving, not just claiming sleeping spots and weapons and food. I wanted to go home.

With him.

I studied Daryl's face, observing with some surprise the briefest flicker of fear, somewhere deep in his gaze. He cleared his throat precisely three times before replying. "Let's check it out first. When we get there. It could be really good for you. Safe."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Frustration sparked in my stomach and my voice. "Safety is an illusion now, Daryl. We'll always be at risk, no matter where we are or who we're with. All I'm asking for is a little time to fucking adjust. Is that too much to ask? Can you handle that?"

At my rising tone, Joe glanced over with clear interest, catching my eye. In the days since our reunion, Daryl and I had been nothing but careful and kind to each other. Taking a deep breath, I tried to keep the anger at bay. That wouldn't help my cause.

"I get what you're saying," Daryl continued dully, "but -"

"No, you don't." God, combativeness tasted good. Screw it. "You're talking like I'm a kid, like you know what's best for me and I don't. I can make a decision, too, you know."

"Riley -"

"I got myself out of the prison," I pointed out. "Got myself food and shelter, dealt with a head injury. I found _you_. Look at all the shit I've done, all by myself. You could at least humour me a little here."

The cigarette was nearly gone now; he dropped it lightly to the ground and rubbed it into the dirt with his knuckles. A small flash of longing hit me then, wishing I were brave enough to take his hand in mine, as he had done the day we'd found each other. Maybe then he would hear me, when I was tangible and real, intertwined with him. "You need a home," he said, chewing again on his thumb, not looking up from the dead smoke.

"Don't tell me what I need," I snapped, suddenly furious, though I really couldn't say why. "I know my own mind. You don't have to talk to me like that."

"What the fuck is wrong with you? All I'm saying is -"

"That I'm a stupid kid who needs you to lead her around?" I interjected heatedly. "That I can't make a goddamned informed decision without running it by you first? That I'm an idiot for wanting to be alone with the only person I have left in the world?"

"Jesus Christ, girl." He ran a hand over his face, shooting a glare over at Tony and Billy, who were snickering at our fight, at the way my face had flushed red and my chest was rising and falling so rapidly in my sudden rage. "Listen the fuck up. You ain't stupid, you ain't a kid, and I ain't the only person left. You'll find new people there, new friends. It'll be okay."

"You keep saying that like you've got it on lock or something. We don't know that it's going to be okay, we don't know that at all. And I just...I just want a fucking break. With you. Some time to breathe." His face softened slightly then, rue painting his features in an expression I couldn't recall seeing ever before. "Is there something else up?" I ventured, baited. How horrible am I? "You don't want to be alone with me?"

He flushed. He goddamn _flushed_. "What?"

Oh, yeah, I was so poking this bear.

"Is that it? You don't want to be with me?"

"No - yeah - I mean -"

"Then what?" I stood, looking down at him challengingly. I hadn't intended to argue with him, but anger was feeling, and feeling was good. Right? That would shatter the glass; I could see everything clearly now, even as my emotions catapulted from one extreme to the next. "I'm just asking for a fucking break, you idiot. I want a few days to figure out what the hell is going on. You're just deciding for us that we're going to Terminus. Did it ever occur to you to ask me what I wanted? What I thought? Or are my opinions too...too..."

Shit. Is there anything more devastating than being unable to pin down an appropriately-venomous adjective during an argument?

I felt myself deflate, anger sputtering out and leaving me breathless. I was spent. "You know what? Screw it. I'm going to sleep."

Daryl nodded again (seriously, could he manage anything else?), his eyes downcast. "You'll feel better in the morning."

I resisted the urge to start up again: his tone wasn't condescending, I reasoned, it was just my overworked brain construing his words as such. And it was over, it needed to be over. Shouldn't have even started, really. The weight of Joe's gaze was now too much, and I scrunched up my face in embarrassed consternation. I should apologize. I should say how sorry I was, how deliriously happy being with him had made me, even as I struggled to accept and adjust to my new surroundings, to the afterlife I hadn't bothered to envision. He was still Daryl, after all, and it was unfair of me to expect so much of him all at once. I should've built up to this request, framed it in less intimate terms.

What the hell was wrong with me? How could I not feel hunger, but could indulge in this abject, futile frustration?

The berries roiled in my stomach, settled uncomfortably with shame, and I half-hoped he would find me a squirrel tomorrow. Maybe some protein would help - and maybe sleep would, too. Maybe I'd dream of something better than this.

* * *

I didn't dream at all.

Instead, I dozed for hours, bearing uncomfortable witness to every audible bodily function that Joe, Billy, Tony, and the others saw fit to show off. The ground was hard and unyielding beneath me, and I couldn't help but long for the bed at my little house, or my bunk at the prison.

But I didn't deserve that. I was a piece of shit who'd baited the only person she had left in the world. Jesus.

With a groan, I rolled over to lay on my back, the heavy scent of moss and a dead fire lessening somewhat as I took in the heavy canopy of stars above. Two voices had stirred me from my light sleep, low and rumbling, and not too far away. Earlier, I had stomped away to the base of an unclaimed tree after my stupid argument, curling myself around the base in a fruitless attempt at comfort. He had remained by the log I'd claimed for the both of us.

"Your girl seemed pretty upset," Joe said, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Wanna talk about it? Lovers' quarrels can be frustrating, or so I hear."

Daryl huffed, and it was accompanied by a gentle _sloosh_ of some liquid. I figured they were passing the flask back and forth again. "We ain't, uh, that. She's just...I think she's scared. Only, she's never been good at admitting that."

"Hmm. Smart little thing, though. She got out on her own, you said? Made it pretty far." Joe took a drink.

"Yeah, she is. Really smart, but she...she don't wanna go to Terminus. Wants to wait for a while."

"And what do you think about that?" I held my breath. _Here we go._

"I'm gonna leave her there. Check it out, make sure it's safe, and then she can stay. I'll go."

 _What. The. Fuck?_

Had that been his intention all along, I wondered? Had he resisted my suggestions earlier tonight because he never planned on us being together for very long anyway? What the hell was going to do, drop me off at the door and wave goodbye?

Anger flared within me again as Joe acknowledged this statement with a low whistle. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to resist sitting bolt upright and cussing him out. It wouldn't do to have another confrontation - that would scare him off entirely and he would avoid me in the coming days. Plus, it was likely to merely stiffen his resolve in this plan.

Daryl merely grunted in response. "You were right," he said. "They ain't gonna welcome me with open arms. But her, she'll have a chance. I owe her that."

Tears stung at the corners of my eyes, and I rolled over again, this time facing the trunk of the tree. How could he think so little of himself, when he was so, so much?

"So it'll be the road for you?"

"Guess so. The woods. I'll find a place. Once I know she's safe."

 _Oh, Daryl_.

"Sounds like a plan, brother. But you know you're always welcome to continue with us?"

He didn't answer. Or, at least, I couldn't stay awake long enough to hear.

* * *

Clearly, I have a pure talent for stating the obvious. "It's not cooked," I said, looking up from the little pile of red slivers of meat to Daryl's face, doing nothing to hide my disgust. Our argument from the night before was still simmering a little in my tone, and now I was upset with him for planning to abandon me at Terminus. Underpinning all of this too was my plaintive regret that he didn't value himself as much I did. And hunger. I was damn hungry now, too, as though acknowledging this storm of emotions had resolutely shattered that goddamn glass bubble and thrust me full-throttle into awareness.

"We ain't got time for a fire. You've done it before," he reminded me, picking up his crossbow with his free hand. "Please, Riley. 'M'sorry, I just need you to eat something that'll fill you. Please."

His gaze was earnest, distant but well-meaning. The conversation with Joe, the one I wasn't meant to have heard, echoed in my ears. _"Once I know she's safe_. _"_

Okay, we were probably going to have to argue again soon, I reasoned. Might as well appease him now. I reached out cupped hands, and then, with a small shudder, tipped the mess into my mouth. He watched as I chewed, waited for me to swallow, offer him a bloody-toothed smirk. "Happy?" I asked, wiping my fingers off on the jeans I would inevitably have to burn.

As we walked, the meat settled strangely in my stomach, churning slightly as I tried to navigate the roots on the ground, focusing on what I was going to say to him during our midday break. Joe always insisted on us stopping around noon, sometimes a little earlier, to rest our legs and do what could to find some food. Daryl and I would usually take this chance to bum another cigarette off Joe - they were dark and gross, but the nicotine was a relief just the same - and chat. About easy things. Not people we had loved. Not memories. Just easy things. Light topics. We swam close to the surface, during those breaks.

But not today.

We were getting closer to Terminus; Joe kept bringing it up, accompanied by a vindictive sense of glee as he reminded us what he planned to do to the piece of shit who had killed his friend, Lou. He estimated that we were at least a day and a half, maybe two and a half, away. Cutting through the woods following Daryl's trail had actually slashed some time from our journey, and now that I knew what _my_ friend had in mind, I had an opportunity to use this time for my own plotting.

I had to hit at his emotions, and bare my own. That prospect was daunting, because feeling just plain hurt these days. Digging deeper into our grief was not necessarily the wisest choice, particularly considering we were on the move and not among friends, but the fact that I was potentially just a day or two away from losing him? That lit a fire under my reluctant ass.

So what? Tell him I'd overheard him the night before? That I never wanted to be apart from him ever again? That I was in love with him? Jesus.

No. I needed to play it smart, give him time. He should initiate conversation, try to draw me out, and then I'd launch. Point out the logical reasons for my reluctance (we should do some recon on any new communities; should build up a store of supplies, perhaps, to offer as part of our admittance; should face our own losses before taking new risks). Yeah, that was a good start. Daryl liked logic.

My goal was to not overwhelm him. I'd already called him an idiot and pushed him farther than I'd intended to; there was absolutely no point antagonizing him further. And I could still hear him from last night, telling Joe that a new community wouldn't want him, wouldn't accept him, that he'd rather go it alone. I had to hope and trust that he wasn't telling the truth there. That he didn't really want to leave me.

To this end, I kept silent for most of the morning, simply focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping my bloody breakfast down. Daryl didn't say much either, save a few observations on the clearness of the sky and the crisp breeze. I was waiting for an in, something to help me fully explore the charged air between us - even one of his trademark "You good?" queries would have been gratefully received right about now - but it never came. Perhaps hoping to avoid another argument, Daryl seemed firmly resolved to avoid drawing me out too much.

And then came the break. He'd claimed some mushrooms, just five, and kept back two for himself. "They won't be as good as the ones you found," he warned, brushing some dirt from the caps of mine and handing them over. "But they'll keep you going."

I smiled wanly, touched once more that he would put so much effort into caring for me, making sure I was fed and safe, but would think so little of himself. Terminus would be goddamn lucky to have Daryl there, I thought, hesitantly taking a bite of a mushroom. Goddamn lucky, and he needed to know that.

Inspiration struck. There was my in. Build up his confidence, and then force him to admit the truth. Foolproof, right?

"You gave me more," I said, once again skilfully stating the obvious. He just shrugged in response, popping his second mushroom into his mouth.

"Need to keep your strength up," he mumbled.

Shaking my head, I gently worked to twist the cap from the third mushroom, then stretched out my hand, just as he had done so many times over the past few days. I left the stem on my knee, and watched as his expression shifted from earnestness to - damn, was that faint dismay? Disappointment?

"Take it, D." My hand twitched, waiting. "Please. You need to keep your strength up, too."

It was a long moment. Years, maybe. He glanced up, eyes hooded and strained - had he been sleeping at all? - and then looked back down at his hands, dangling between his knees. We'd claimed a resting spot near the wide stump of what had once likely been an impressive tree. The rest of the group had gathered closer to the riverbank, and I was angled away from them, facing Daryl and the tree, so that I didn't have to watch as they did unspeakable things to the water. _Christ_. Couldn't they piss somewhere else?

He made no move to reach out and take the mushroom.

"Hey," I said quietly, setting aside the rest of my lunch and shifting closer on my knees. "Please, D. Take it. You're so busy making sure I'm okay, you're forgetting about yourself."

No response.

I reached forward then, taking one of his hands in mine, and - sensing no resistance in him - gently turned it palm up. "Please," I said again, dropping the cap into his grip. "Consider it a make-up present for all the birthdays and Christmases you've missed so far. For me."

The corner of his mouth quirked at that. "Didn't know you were waiting on that," he growled, but not without some amusement. "Fine, if it'll stop you nagging."

I watched him eat with some satisfaction, feeling that I'd done a good deed for that day, done my job. It helped me to understand where he was coming from with his own offerings, the berries and the squirrel - making sure he was okay was so fundamentally reassuring that I even felt myself relaxing for a moment, sinking down beside him against the stump. He was okay. The only person I had left in the world was okay.

It hit me then.

If Daryl was the only person _I_ had left, then that meantI was the only person _he_ had left. And leaving me at Terminus was just part of taking care of me, making sure I was okay. _"Once I know she's safe."_

Damn.

"Do you remember that kitten poster?" I asked, leaning slightly against his shoulder. He didn't jerk away, only turned his head for a moment to look down at me, probably in disbelief. Not that I blamed him; I wasn't even quite sure why I'd brought it up.

"What? The one in our cell?"

 _Our cell_. The words warmed me, brought me back to our little home of stone and hope. I closed my eyes against a tide of memory, pushing away the boxes of our clothes, the purple blanket stretched over my bed, the sound of our world pattering by outside our blue plaid door. A life of colour and detail, wherein we could afford to take the time to dress and shower, choose clothes carefully. To debate whether raisins or dried blueberries would be better with oatmeal. To finish our jobs for the day and retreat to a private moment, a quiet conversation - a yielding, to the inevitable.

We had been two different people then, inching uncertainly towards something we couldn't quite wrap our minds around. _"I don't know what this is_ ," he'd told me once. I knew the truth now, I knew what _this_ was. And _this_ was care and comfort, pushing food into the other's hands, begging them to eat and drink. _This_ was wondering if he had slept, wondering what was going on in his head, wishing he would just tell me. _This_ was a question, flung out on the cool air, checking in, always checking in. _This_ was my hand on his chest, a secret embrace in the night - his rough, startled awakening in the morning, when he realized how close we had moved. _This_ was a silent extrication, a moment alone to recover.

That stupid poster. I'd only taped it up to appease Beth, who was so eager to turn concrete and steel into a home. _Just hang in there_ , the slogan had urged, writ large in pink and yellow. "Yeah, that one." I smiled, dipping my head to lean against his shoulder. He didn't move. Good sign, good sign. "The one Beth gave us."

 _Ah_. Maybe it was my subconscious - clever thing - that had brought the poster to mind, knowing it would give me a segue to her. Which would lead me to a broader discussion, the true reason behind my wanting to hold off on Terminus.

Under my head, his shoulder tightened, and his hands met in a tight knot between his knees. _Tread fucking lightly, Riley_. "We'll find her," I said softly. "She's out there; we'll find her."

There was a silence then, in which the two of us did nothing but watch Joe berate Billy for some stupid infraction. Around us, the forest shifted and grew, and then contracted in upon us again, and I pressed closer to him. "I miss them."

It was simple. It was true. And it was the reason I wanted him so badly, all to myself. I had lost Michonne, and Rick, Carl and Judith; Brandy and Maggie and Glenn. Sasha, Tyreese, Bob. Hershel. Levi. _Beth_. And so, so many more. Julia - my right damn hand, where was she? And her children, and the girls…

This world demanded so, so much more of a human heart and mind than I thought it ever could. Loss had lived in the old world, too, of course, but it was more subtle. Delayed. There was ceremony and procedure. A handy step-by-step guide to heartbreak and grief. But in this world, there was only moving forward, and holding on to what you had left. _Who_ you had left.

"It was my fault," he said, voice breaking around a lump of unshed tears. "I shoulda...I…"

"No." Though it pained me to move, I did, kneeling in front of him and lifting his chin so that he was looking right at me. "No, it's not your fault. You helped her get out, you kept her safe and I'm sure you taught her stuff. Just like me. You did your job, Daryl. It's _not your fault_."

He blinked. "Not just Beth," he said lowly, looking down at his hands again. "The prison. You. Hershel. It was my fault."

My mouth dropped open, words I couldn't yet say filtering through a deep, deep shock. He blamed himself for the Governor? How could he? What possible reason could he have for -

Oh.

"I shoulda kept going with you and Michonne." His voice was tight, eyes shining. "Maybe found a trail, if I'd looked a bit harder. But I was...I just wanted to be there...I'm such a fucking asshole."

I wanted to hug him. So badly. Pull him fast against me, tell him how fucking wrong he was. Daryl had kept that prison running: bringing in more people, more food, hunting regularly, overseeing the riskiest supply runs. We wouldn't have survived without him, and the trail had gone cold, it had gone ice cold. He'd told us so. Michonne and I continuing to head out to look for the Governor had been all but wishful thinking.

"You...you…"

 _You are so important to me. You were so important to all of us. You kept us safe, you kept us alive. Goddamnit, Daryl, you are so much more than you give yourself credit for and there isn't one drop of blood on your hands._

That's what I should have said. Instead, I grabbed both of his hands, twisted them in mine, squeezed him so tight I thought he would burst beneath my touch. "Look at me," I said firmly, knowing Joe's eyes were on us again. I knew what it must have looked like to them, me kneeling between his propped-up legs, hands intertwined. But I didn't give a shit, because Daryl needed me more. "Look at me, please."

He did. Blue eyes burning, burning bright as a candle. He was aflame with guilt, dying on a pyre of his own making. How could I have been so dim?

"This is not on you. Not one bit of it. You were right to give up, to stay back at the prison. They couldn't have done the runs without you, wouldn't have had any meat without you." My composure broke at the abject, tangible pain in my hands, and I began to cry. "We needed you there, at the prison. Fuck him, fuck what he did. It's _his_ fault, Daryl, all of it. He killed Hershel. He tore us apart. It's because of him that you and Beth were out there in the first place, and _that_ isn't your fault either.

"You do so much for us all. The only reason I made it out of the prison at all and into the woods was because of what you taught me." I took a deep breath, released his hands for a minute to wipe away the tears streaming down my cheeks. "You can't punish yourself for this, Daryl, please. I overheard you last night - you want to leave me at Terminus, right?"

He nodded, just once, eyes boring into mine. "Okay," I said, trying to steady my breathing. "Why? Why don't you want to come with me? Why do you want to leave me?"

Daryl's mouth twitched around a response, but a shadow and an intruding voice cut swiftly through the moment. "Everything all right over here?" Joe asked curiously, and I closed my eyes in frustration. We were getting somewhere, we were actually goddamn getting somewhere.

"Yeah, we just need a minute," I said, reaching for Daryl again, but by this time he'd already shifted, struggling to his feet.

"We're fine." Daryl adjusted his vest and picked up the crossbow. "Good to go."

 _Oh, hell, no._

* * *

"Talk to me, please," I said plaintively, picking my way through the undergrowth rather frantically, only half-paying attention to where I was going. We'd walked in silence for nearly an hour now, and I was sick of it. Back at the river, we'd been a moment away - I was sure of it - from some real emotional progress, and given that every step in this...this _indecision_ only brought us closer to Terminus and his plan, I wanted to push him, push him to feel, to talk. To tell me _why_. I just wanted to know why.

"Ain't nothing to talk about. You said your piece," Daryl grumbled, holding back a springy young branch so that we could pass through without getting a switch to the face. "We just need to walk. We're almost there."

I decided that the only thing to do would be just to simply keep talking. Push, push, push, that was me. _Let's feel, Daryl. Let's feel everything, stick some fancy labels on it and share our pain_. _Because I love you so, so much_. "Why do you want to leave me there?" I pressed.

He shrugged, slowing somewhat to match my pace (not that I was tired; I just wanted some more space between us and the others). "It'll be good for you there, but they ain't gonna want me."

"How do you know that? You're a hunter, D, and a tracker. You're a hell of a fighter, too. They'll want you, I'm sure of it." I tried to muster a smile. "They're probably going to want you more than me; you'll have to convince them to let _me_ in."

He stopped short, so quietly and abruptly that none of the others noticed. I waited, waited for him to turn and face me, to yell and rant and tell me to leave him the fuck alone. Because "nothing" and "bitch" lingered still in my memory, aching and scratching against better thoughts, and I knew full well that my actions here today, this pushing and prodding, would have consequences that even the strange question of his feelings for me would not be able to quell, if he chose to indulge it.

"Why, Daryl?" I whispered, taking a half step closer, so that the angel wings, faded now against the leather, were a scant inch from my touch, if I were to raise my hand. "Please tell me."

"I don't deserve it," he said hoarsely, head bowed. "I fucking let you all down. I don't deserve a home like that again. Don't deserve people I can't protect."

My heart broke accompanied by a song unsung, reverberating through every inch of my body with a discordant sort of aria. _This is what you wanted_ , I reminded myself, even as a choked cry escaped my lips. He wheeled around at the sound, always checking on me, always making sure everyone around him was okay, just fine, because screw it if he was suffering, God forbid anybody else should feel bad.

"Don't say that." I stepped closer again, resting my face against his chest and winding my arms around his back, ignoring the fact that he made no move to embrace me, too. "You did everything you could. We were outnumbered and he had a goddamn tank, Daryl. You did _everything_ you could. You deserve a home again. We both do and I want it, I want it with you."

"But you said -"

"I said I wanted a few days," I sniffed, leaning away to look at him. "Some time for us to do _this_ , to talk about everything that's happened before we just...plunge headfirst into something new. But I want this now, I really, really do. Terminus could be good for both of us."

"Riley."

" _Daryl_ ," I countered firmly. "Let's do it. Let's go. Screw my plan, you're right. We'll go, check it out and make sure it's safe."

Ahead on the trail, Joe and Tony had stopped, looking back at us, standing so damn close. I tried to focus my gaze back on Daryl, not them - because they didn't matter. Not in the grand scheme of our future. "I misspoke yesterday," I added, keeping my voice low, intimate, just for him. "You're not the last person left in the world, I know that. But you are the last part of my family left, the only person I care about, and you're going to have to pry me off you with a fucking crowbar, Dixon, because I am not leaving you again. _Ever_. Threat or promise, take your pick, but you are not getting rid of me."

 _Here_ is love, I think, watching as his gaze faltered and his hands shook by my sides. _Here_ is love, in the space between wanting and binding - lingering in the moment before a kiss I should have given. Death was in our wake, and all around us, and ahead of us, too, a thick storm of inevitable suffering - but we were together. We had each other, and the instinct to tend and care for each other. And no matter what Joe thought, no matter what he said, Terminus would want him, because they would see how much _I_ wanted him. Love and longing danced on my skin, setting me alight, even in the cool embrace of the forest, even with tears drying on my cheeks. They would see that I loved him, that he deserved that love, that he was worth so, so much more than he counted himself.

I didn't have to say it; I think he knew. I think he heard me through my silent appraisal, my small, tender smile. He used his thumbs to rub away the tears, and he nodded. Just once. But that said everything I was desperate to hear.

* * *

 ** _Feedback would be so appreciated! I hope you enjoyed this chapter._**


	35. A

_**Chapter XXXV: A**_

You there?

Listen up. Let's reclaim the self. Let's pull her back from the dark, dark brink of her own thoughts, let's turn her into a bastion, into a motte-and-bailey girl. Build up the walls, keep the rest out. The creeping advance of nightmare, poking at the door. Fuck that.

So let's get her back. What can she feel? What can she hear? What can she see? What can she smell? And what can she taste?

 _Dirt, firm and unyielding, beneath her fingertips._

 _A man's voice - no, two men's voices - one pleading, one taunting._

 _Blood, dried and cakey, shattering like red glass from her skin._

 _Sweat. Deep and primal._

 _Bitter bile sizzling between her teeth._

I know this girl. I know that I know her. I met her once, between the embrace of four angry walls, such a long time ago. She can't talk very much, can't string more than a few words together to hold out and offer up all those big, torturous feelings battering at her brain.

I love this girl.

Through the pain, through the sorrow, I love this girl. Want to wrap her up in my arms and squeeze her so tight she can't feel anything but me.

I hate this girl.

She's too weak to face what I did. Too weak to understand that I _had_ to do it - what choice did I have? And what happened to me...after what happened to her...what other goddamn choice did I have? I want to hit her. Want to slap her into knowing.

But I don't do either. Instead, I sit back, watch her fall to fucking pieces. And I applaud.

What a show.

* * *

At least the woods were beautiful. I tried to focus on that, on the steady approach of autumn, on the crisp crunch of newly-fallen leaves beneath my feet. It was a colder year than I remembered in the past, as though the weather had turned prematurely sad and grim in response to our misery and loss. But at least it was pretty - all burnished red and yellows, fluttering to the ground so gently and elegantly that I couldn't help but think of ballerinas, twirling on the stage.

We walked until the night fell, longer than we had gone on in the days since I'd joined the group. The trail was getting more and more defined, leading us to the main road, an artery of the highway I was pretty sure ran parallel to the train tracks. I asked Daryl, and he just shrugged; it wasn't important. Not as important as food, or keeping an eye out for walkers, or the manic insistence that seemed to be infecting Joe as we got closer and closer to his quarry. Despite the fact that my legs were aching and a small knot had taken up residence somewhere in my lower back, I didn't dare complain: the look on his craggy face, eyes flashing with the thrill of imminent retribution, swayed me from that.

At dusk, we finally stopped, just for an hour or so. Along the way, Daryl and I had foraged for an armful each of clover and chicory, and we found ourselves a comfortable spot a little ways away from the main group, settling in with our dinner and our plans for the future. Time was taking shape, by then, so that he could honestly promise me that we would be at Terminus within twenty-four hours. I nibbled on sweet green leaves as I pondered the significance of that: a bed. I might have a bed the next night. Clean clothes. Something in my stomach more than weeds or raw meat.

Hope fanned bright within me, and humour naturally followed - I actually laughed for a solid five minutes at the sight of Daryl popping the pale lavender blooms of chicory into his mouth. An honest-to-goodness smile spread across his face, even reaching his eyes, as he watched me spit out a few pieces of clover and hold my belly against the mirth. He batted one of the flowers at my face. "Shut up and eat your salad," he said gruffly, but not without that gleam in his eye, the one that told me he was feeling a little lighter, too.

Joe, Tony, and Harley shot coordinating dark, grim looks in our direction, and I sobered quickly, only the occasional hiccup testifying to just how delighted I'd been. Thankfully, our time with them was inevitably coming to an end, as we got closer and closer to Terminus. Daryl had told Joe earlier that day that he was going to try the place with me - actually, "for her" had been his exact words - and since then, he and Tony in particular had been doing what they could to change his mind.

Jealousy sure is a bitch.

"Hey, Joe." Billy had headed out some time ago, tracking forward to the road. We were only about a mile or two away - but we'd needed a rest and it was always preferable to do that under the ample cover of trees and brush. "Hey, I saw him," he said, breathing heavily from his journey. "He's camped out on the main road, got a truck or something. Two others with him."

I started at the words, dropping the last of my supper to the ground to glance over at Daryl, whose mouth has gone tight, a stern line of resignation. _Goddamnit._ I'd hoped we would part from Joe's group long before they caught up with the guy who allegedly murdered one of their own in cold blood. I didn't want to be involved in this, and judging from his expression, neither did Daryl.

"All right, gentlemen," Joe said with a flourish, dusting off his jeans as he stood. "You know what to do. A quiet advance, we'll observe until we've got the situation sussed out, and then we get our justice. Understood?"

The others rose so smoothly and efficiently it was as though the movement had been choreographed. Or maybe it was just that they'd been waiting so long, anticipating Billy's breathless, triumphant return. Briefly, as I gather my backpack and my yet-unused hatchet, I wonder why Billy didn't just kill the guy himself. I mean, Joe probably wanted to do it, but why turn it into a great big song and dance, really?

Because, I realized - he was going to draw this out. Make it something big. Joe was all about the grandiose, the systematic. Even Len's death had been accompanied by a dramatic plot twist, leading us to believe he was seconds away from punishing Daryl, only to turn around and order the others to beat their friend to death. Or whatever they were to each other - maybe "friend" wasn't the best word.

Still, we followed them through the woods, picking our way through the leaf-blanketed ground as the night increased in confidence around us, velvety and deep. Twice, I almost lost my footing, the second time nearly walking directly into the thick trunk of a tree. "Jesus, keep it down," Harley (a complete asshole, I'd learned over the past few days) snapped, rounding on me even in the dark. "Can't wait 'til you fucking disappear."

I just rolled my eyes. "Miss you, too, buddy," I said with a wry smile he couldn't see. I couldn't wait to disappear either.

Another mile melted behind us, and my legs were now knotted and tense - but we weren't stopping yet. "Ain't much more," Billy whispered, just ahead of us. "We'll be there soon."

"Stop," Joe said abruptly, and we all obeyed. He flicked on his lighter, a slim flame in the dark. "We'll pause here for another breather, fellas. We need to collect our thoughts and get our weapons out. That asshole may have moved, may be scouting, we don't know. Take a minute - Tony, come here, would you?"

As the rest of the took the opportunity to catch their breath and massage tired muscles - Joe and Billy had set a furious clip through the woods - Daryl tugged me away and behind a tree a couple of yards away, as best I could see, from the group. My eyes were adjusting to the lack of light as much as they could, but not enough to clearly identify everything. Daryl's face came to me in moonlit shards and memory, as we stood together, still in fairly plain view of the others.

"Don't go too far," Joe called over. "We'll be walking again soon."

"Okay," I replied, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. God, I couldn't fucking wait…

The end of the thought vanished from my mind as Daryl lightly brushed a few strands of my scraggly hair behind my ear.

 _As Daryl lightly brushed a few strands of my scraggy hair behind my ear_.

A shiver ran through me at his bewildering touch, as my mind raced to comprehend what had brought this intimacy on. This was romantic, this was tenderness, this was not us, not yet. I had hopes for the future, of course, of long days of him doing nothing but playing with my hair, and I with his, but we were at least - by my calculations - a century or so away from that stage. "Wh -?"

"They're watching," he said lowly, inclining his head to the right so subtly it looked as though he was merely quirking his head to appraise me. Part of me wondered why he was bothering to do all that. The lack of light meant that the others probably couldn't see much of us at this distance, and besides - they were all so worked up about finding the guy who killed Lou that Daryl and I sneaking off a little in the dark likely wouldn't even register. We'd always tried to keep ourselves separate, anyways.

The other part of me told the first part to shut the hell up because Daryl was standing pretty damn close to me and he'd touched my actual body without having the excuse of comforting me or checking for injuries.

Progress. Not the best time for progress, but I'd take it.

"You good?" he asked, his preferred preamble. I gave him a quick, reassuring nod. "When we get to the road, we hang back. Let 'em go on ahead, and then we just go. Through the woods for a while, then when we hit the tracks again, we can stop for a break."

Silently, I weighed the risks. Joe wasn't happy that Daryl had chosen me and Terminus over the group and the road, and I wasn't surprised: Daryl was a good hunter, a skilled tracker. He would come in handy for this kind of life, and he fit in neatly with Joe's philosophy. That men like them were made for the world as it was now, that they'd always been ready. I figured a part of Joe still hoped Daryl was just trying to soothe me, hysterical woman that I was, and would indeed leave me at the front gate without so much as a goodbye.

But if he was distracted when we made our bid for escape, we'd have a much better chance of success. And even though they knew where we were headed, it would take them a while to catch up. "But what...what if…" I paused, trying to frame my concern as clearly as possible. But in that space, I could see that Joe had finished his conversation with Tony and was headed our way. Daryl noticed, too, and pulled me closer, pressing my head against his chest.

 _Oh, shit_.

"What if they follow us to Terminus?" I whispered, hoping that it was low enough to sound like a sweet nothing to Joe's distant ears.

"Then we'll find someplace to hide out," Daryl answered swiftly, lips moving against my hair. "Warehouse or something along the way. Sound good?"

I nodded against him, turning my face just for a moment so that I could breathe in the strangely comforting mixture of forest, sweat, and smoke from his clothes - leather on denim on cotton. It's a quick action, a brief grab at some nostalgia, reminding me of our journeys on his bike or on Honey. On the former, I rode behind him; on the latter, he preferred to have me sit in front of him, sometimes holding the reins so he could grab the bow faster or slide off if need be. I leaned against him and I remember home. And luxuriate, for a moment, in the comforting thought that, in a matter of hours, we might be welcomed into a new one.

"Wrap it up, lovebirds," Joe said gruffly, clapping a hand on Daryl's shoulder, forcing us to spring apart. "We're leaving. Gotta bring some retribution to this piece of shit, you know?"

No, actually, I don't.

I understood the desire for revenge, really, I did. After Andrea, I'd fallen asleep more than one night to dark dreams of ending the Governor, for what he'd done - and that was _before_ he murdered Hershel, too, before he'd razed our home to the ground. But I wasn't angry any more, because it was over. It was done. And there was something new ahead of me. Maybe it wouldn't be better, but it would be something.

It would be _ours_ , I thought, a furtive kind of joy kindling in my stomach as I looked over at him, through the dark. It would be our future, and we'd be okay in it.

* * *

The blood, when it comes, is hot, and that shocks her. She's used to the cool blood of the dead, chill and wet against her skin. She's had to wipe it off, shake it off, dip herself in a creek or under a showerhead to rid herself of it.

But his blood is hot, and it shudders out of him, from the wound she made, or I made. She levels the blame on me, in the moment, crawls away and leaves the hatchet behind.

Air leaves her lungs in uncertain spurts, and she scrapes along the ground, looking for someone. For the boy, who's crying. For the men, who stand in stony, breathless silence. For her friend, who reaches for someone else, not her.

Because we don't deserve comfort, do we, she snaps at me. Spitting and yelling silently, just for the two of us. She wants me to know she hates me. She's afraid of me.

She gulps at life. Gulps and chokes on the possibility of another day. Another slim hope. And she shoves me to the side, because I'm a fucking killer.

* * *

"Maybe this place isn't even there anymore." I closed my eyes in recognition, awful recognition. The voice belonged to someone I'd buried. One of my ghosts.

"Shit, Daryl, shit," I whispered, grabbing at his shoulder. We'd hung back, ready to enact our plan once Joe and the others had firmly settled in to their plan. But then I had properly listened, really listened, to the low voices up ahead on the road, just in front of the battered truck. And I'd realized who was speaking.

"Oh, dearie me," Joe drawled, and as I took another step forward, still clutching Daryl's shoulder, I saw the flash of his gun in the dark, lowering to Rick's temple. "You screwed up, asshole. You hear me? You screwed up. Today is a day of reckoning, sir. Restitution."

Daryl shook his shoulder loose of my grip, firing back with a muttered entreaty for me to stay hidden, to let him handle it. "Just stay down, please, girl," he said quietly, stepping around the treeline.

"Nine Mississippi," Joe counted. I scanned the scene, as much as I could actually see: Tony had a gun pointed at Michonne; Harley and the others were circled around, guns ready to fire. But they were alive. They were alive - Rick and Michonne were alive. "Eight Mississippi."

And not for long, if Joe had anything to say about it.

"Joe!" Daryl's voice cut sharply through the night; I held my breath. "Hold up."

One step to the right, and I suddenly had a much clearer vantage point than before. I could see now that Rick was struggling to take in Daryl's presence, shock writ clear upon his face. Not only had he just come back from the dead, he'd done so in the company of potential killers. "You're stopping me on eight, Daryl," Joe said, tone full of warning.

"Just hold up." Despite himself, Daryl glanced back over his shoulder, meeting my eyes from where I crouched behind a low-growing bush. I nodded. _Try. Please try_ , I silently pleaded, hoping he could see it in my eyes.

"This is the guy that killed Lou, so we got nothing to talk about," Harley interjected, gun still trained at Michonne.

 _Michonne and Rick were alive._ That single detail strummed happily through my mind, completely at odds with the tension inherent in our current situation. We were outgunned, sure, but they were alive. There were four of us now. Four of us who could walk into the future together.

"The thing about nowadays is we got nothing but time. Say your piece, Daryl," Joe nodded.

It was stupid, and he was going to be mad, I knew that well enough, but I took a step forward, feet propelled by a strange, strange combination of fear and relief. The universe wouldn't punish us this much, I realized. Daryl and I wouldn't get them back only to die, or watch them die, moments later. No, things were going to be okay. With a jellied gait, I stepped over the lip of the road, meeting Michonne's dumfounded expression with a small smile.

"These people," Daryl continued, shooting me a disapproving look, "you're gonna let 'em go. These are good people."

Joe's face twisted. "Now, I think Lou would disagree with you on that. I'll, of course, have to speak for him, 'cause your friend here strangled him in a bathroom."

The unease returned, simmering in the pit of my stomach. If Rick did kill the guy, he would've had a good reason to do so. I doubted very much, however, that Joe would agree with this line of reasoning. Nevertheless, I opened my mouth, prepared to at least repeat Daryl's sentiments, to just tell them we'll be on our way, but he spoke before I could: "You want blood, I get it," Daryl said, carefully setting down the crossbow and nudging me backwards in the same fluid movement. "Take it from me, man." He spread his hands, palms up, a gesture of surrender.

Shock made a statue of me, a girl frozen in a moment of plain horror. A voice bubbled up in my throat, wanting to beg, to pull him away, to crawl our way out of there like cowards - but live ones. But the voice is silenced by a slithering little reminder, as my eyes were drawn down to the signs of his supplication, his sacrifice. _Joe wants Rick dead_ , I remembered, awareness kicking in with a dull thud. _He wants blood, and he won't leave here without it._

"This man killed our friend." I was surprised to register a wavering in Joe's voice; he was genuinely upset by Daryl's defence, it seemed. "You say he's good people. See, now, that right there i-is a lie. It's a lie."

My blood froze and then shattered in my veins, a winter storm raging within me, and Daryl's hands dropped. In the same moment, we realized what was coming next. "No," I said hoarsely, choking on the dread of it all. "No, please, don't -"

"Come on," Daryl pleaded softly, in the split second before the butt of a rifle was driven deep into his gut, bringing him instantly to his knees. I screamed and flew forward, well-bitten nails scratching down the side of Harley's face as he tried to kick me away, as blow after blow rained down on his back, on his head.

"Teach him, fellas. Teach him all the way."

"Fuck you!" I screamed, as Rick begged them to stop. And then there was a hand at my stomach, shoving me backwards with terrific force, so much so that I seemed to twirl in midair. I rolled over the side of the road, tumbling into the slight dip of the ditch. Dirt filled my mouth as I was pressed down, a thick hand at the base of my skull. "F-fuck you."

There was no voice. Only hands. Rolling me over to face the stars, wrapping around the flesh of my neck, pushing and squeezing and drinking the life from me. My own hands scrambled in the dirt, knowing my hatchet had been knocked loose from my pants. Knowing if I could get it, everything would be okay.

Grunts came from above. Gasps, too. And yelps. The thud of man against metal, skin against skin, and the whimpers of a boy, seeing the darkness of the world for the first, fulsome, despicable time.

* * *

"Don't touch me!" the girl shrieks, before launching herself into his arms. I can't help but stifle a bitter laugh - how pathetic. She's carrying on like the blood is dripping from her hands, not mine.

Damn, I want a cigarette.

It's a good thing I'm here. She'd be nothing without me. After what I've done for her.

Could she even recall the way those hands had wrapped around her throat? The way her breath had been snatched right from her lungs, leaving only a burning, fearful absence behind?

I remember.

He strokes her back, and I feel a flash of jealousy. Just for a moment. His touches burn, but in a better way. His is a blaze that promises - every touch is a building of trust. Of surrender. Of him getting closer to admitting something I need to know. But she's probably going to be the one to hear it.

She's so weak.

Pathetic. Craven. A coward.

All I can say is, watching her tremble in his grip - well, thank God I was there.

* * *

After a few hours of silence, Michonne hung back a little to walk in step with me. I concentrated hard on the slats beneath my feet, preferring those to my hands, to the sky, to the man in front of me. The man I'd once loved and followed, but who now inspired a flicker of fear every time I looked at him. Rick had washed his face clean of the blood, but my memory was harder to scrub.

"How are you?" she asked, not daring to touch me.

 _Because you're a disgusting fucking killer._

I shrugged, not knowing how to put it into words. As a term, "cold" would've worked, since I figured I would never be warm, not ever again. But on the whole, I found my present state impossible to articulate, since to do so would have relied on facing some things I kind of preferred keeping buried. The memory of how Rick's face had gotten so bloody ranked pretty high up there. The origin of Daryl's purple, puffy eye and numerous other bruises, that could go away, too.

Ever the optimist, Michonne tried again. "I didn't know if you...I wasn't sure where you were, in the prison," she said. "When it happened."

I shrugged again.

After that, time moved in odd increments. I was aware of changes: Rick ordering us to leave the tracks, as we got closer and closer to Terminus. He wanted to approach from behind, to get a good look at them before they got one at us.

We buried the weapons, the weapons we'd pilfered from the dead. From the man I killed.

Daryl helped me over the fence, guiding my foot to the most ideal point for launching myself up, hand skimming my calf in a way that should have had me blushing, shivering, a puddle at his feet. But I just felt cold. Cold and stupid; it was all I could do to follow them, to make my numb way through the rabbit warren of concrete and last chances.

Salvation's voice belonged to a woman. Aptly so. "Terminus," she said smoothly. "Those who arrive, survive. Follow the tracks to the point where all lines intersect. There are maps at the crossings to help guide you with your journey. Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive, survive. Terminus, sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who -"

She stopped at Rick's greeting, and for the briefest moment, I considered what we must look like: armed and dirty and dangerous, certainly. I wore a necklace of bruises; Carl had a hollow, aching look. Michonne had a goddamn katana.

We looked like killers, didn't we? Or the downtrodden? Certainly not people you'd want to welcome with open arms.

A young man, a little older than me, slammed down a paintbrush and strode over. "Well, I bet Albert is on perimeter watch" he said irritatedly. "You here to rob us?" His dark eyes scanned us carefully, looking for the gleam of a drawn knife, I thought, or a trail or corpses in our wake.

"No," Rick said evenly. "We wanted to see you before you saw us."

"Makes sense." The man looked around at his companions, as though waiting for protest. Receiving none, he ploughed on: "Usually we do this where the tracks meet," he said, clearing his throat. "Welcome to Terminus. I'm Gareth. Looks like you've been on the road for a good bit."

 _What?_

Could it really be that easy, I wondered? Couldn't they tell what I'd done? That I'd killed a living, breathing human being?

 _How many walkers have you killed?_ Too many to count.

 _How many people have you killed?_ One, I think.

 _Why?_

That's as far as I could manage, as deep as I could delve.

I tried to focus; Rick was introducing us. This would be our new home. They didn't have to know that, just hours before, a man had bled his lifeblood out upon me. Staining my hands and the blade of a weapon I'd buried. As though dirt could cover this up.

Gareth smiled, but there was little warmth in it, and my mind jumped to old stories, witches with houses of candy, ushering in the innocent with smiles that did not reach their monstrous eyes. "You're nervous," he said. "I get it. We were all the same way. We cam here for sanctuary. That what you're here for?"

 _And absolution, if you've any on the stove_.

Another man came forward, another witch with sticky-sweet fingers. "We've got nothing to hide," Gareth explained smoothly, "but the welcome wagon is a whole lot nicer. Alex will take you, ask you a few questions. Uh, but first, we need to see everyone's weapons. If you could just lay them down in front of you."

From the pause, I knew they were exchanging looks. Rick questioning Michonne, then Daryl, and then his son - because Carl is alive, too, damn it, the miracles just won't stop - and probably me, all silently. But I didn't look up. A gruff "all right" was my cue to strip the stolen knife from my waist, the pistol from my pocket. I laid them down and stared at the mess of them on the floor, my mind desperately trying to recall a time when I hadn't needed to be armed.

Alex patted us down, asking a few questions as he did so, trying his best to be good-natured when it must be an absolute bitch to have to do this to people. I looked up when he approached me, hands outstretched with an apologetic expression. "Sorry, it'll just take a minute."

There were questions, and more questions, and hope, tasting sweet as summer berries, on our tongues as we were led through what we thought might be a new home, through what we thought was a sanctuary. And as we walked, I found myself loosening, muscles relaxing into the feeling of freedom, of being purged, of being forgiven. As we walked, my eyes found Daryl's, and my lips twitched around a small smile. We'd made it, we'd made it, we were walking to freedom.

Until we had to run.

* * *

From above, I watch her run. She's faster than I thought she was, but maybe that's just the terror. Great motivator, fear. She fires off a few shots, but she's only got about eight rounds, and once those are gone - flung haphazardly at the faces of these sudden enemies - she drops the gun and keeps running.

She follows, like she always does. Where does Daryl want to go? Where does Michonne head? She takes cues for living, never bothering to think for herself.

I know she's hurting now. Stitches in her side, sewing her up and then unravelling her one more time. Bullets dance by her ankles, forcing her into a jaunty two-step full of doubt and second guesses. For a second, I feel sorry again, safe as I am above and away and all around. They can't touch _me_. And in that second, I twitch to pull her close, to lay her head in my lap and watch her drift off to sleep on the tides of dreams that have nothing to do with this maze of horror.

When she finally stops, I take a deep breath for the two of us. Oh, it tastes good. Like resignation. Like a surrender to the inevitable. We're going to die, aren't we? And then it's going to be all over.

As she waits, frozen, for the next order, I banish the memory of the hands around her neck - my neck - and I let go of the blood, hot and pouring over my face. It's gone, faded into the past. Washed away by the absolution of this present threat.

She follows. I join her.

* * *

In the dark, after, I tried to own myself again. Rubbed my hands over my own arms, pushed Gareth and the sound of those bullets from my brain.

In the dark, after, I tried to reason with myself. He'd been trying to kill me, hands wrapped tight around my neck, ready to squeeze the life from my flesh and bones. What I'd done, anybody would have. Daryl would have done the same, wouldn't he? Michonne? Maggie and Glenn?

In the dark, after, I cringed from reunion. Maggie tried to touch me, tried to hug me, and Sasha said my name almost prayerfully. But didn't they know? Didn't they know?

In the dark, after, I found a spot on the floor, giving up before anyone else did. I listened numbly as Rick said his piece, staked his claim. As Rick planned his revenge.

"They're fucking with the wrong people."

But I was already gone.

* * *

You still there?

We haven't lost her yet. I mean, I haven't lost her yet. But it's tenuous now, my grip - our grip - _whatever_. I hold her in the dark, build up that bastion, make her a motte-and-bailey kind of girl, one girded by iron and hope, slim as it may be. She doesn't need anyone's arms around her but mine, not even his right now. I hug her and I tell her things will be okay.

Even though they probably won't be.

Even though our hands are red and will be for years, if we get years. Even though the ghosts have come back, this time vindictive and angry, and they snap at our heels and remind us just how fucking selfish we are. She is. I am.

I shake my head in the dark, mutter the words until they make sense. Like rearranging Scrabble tiles, until the familiar emerges on the little wooden rack. _She is. I am._ Tangled and twisted, the letters and their meaning jump around, until I manage to pin them down.

She's not dead. We're not dead. I'm not dead.

Not yet. I guess.

* * *

 _ **Author's note:** I played a little with formatting here. Riley's going through some serious stuff, and I was aiming to kind of evoke that feeling of disconnection through my writing style, which I tried to change throughout the chapter to reflect what's going on with her. I hope it worked! _


	36. The Girl On The Outside

_**Chapter XXXVI: The Girl On The Outside**_

 **one**

Blood drips from her, unseen and red, as she runs. She battles her way through the storm, flesh both dead and live crushing at her skin, as flames lick at the edges of her sight. He's been taken, and she's not sure where. She runs despite the fear, the question bouncing from nerve to nerve. The unknowing sings hot in her veins, and she wishes for an answer. It comes in the form of a hand around hers, a tugging toward freedom, and she sinks into the feeling.

"Come on, come on," he says, and curses over and over again. This language is theirs: it's silent and secret, with a world of words hiding between the ones they do say. He pulls on her, then pushes her, and then there's a new hand on her back, and she's running, she runs, she gives in to the taste of clearer air, not choked by smoke and ruin. She runs, and she thinks of her mother.

After, in the cool, shady paradise of a silent, autumn-brushed forest, she's able to take a breath, clutch at the stitch in her side, and sink to her knees. A woman she hasn't met yet grabs her then, hugs her as though they've known each other for years. "Shit," the woman says. "Shit, you okay? You okay?"

I watch, and I listen. The woman brushes a hank of thick, black hair from her face, better to focus on the stunned, frozen girl on the ground in front of her. "Seriously, dude. You okay? You look a little…"

She doesn't answer, and I'm not surprised. The words are too sharp and her throat is so dry - they catch on the way out. The dark-haired woman tries to smile down at her, reaching out a helping hand, but the girl on the outside, the one I watch, she just turns away, settling down on the leaf-strewn ground, rubbing idly at her ribs.

I know this girl. The girl on the outside. I know her pretty damn well - I've known her tiniest moments, the infinitesimal memories that make up her life and her history. I _lived_ that history with her, after all. But now we're at odds. She was caught between the hope she'd had and the life she was given. Her time behind the walls had handed her a false sense of instinct and courage. I mean, sure, she was plucky. Eager. Full of feelings and plans, coveting the promise of a brighter future. She'd wanted to be a friend, have a job, eat better food and drink herself into an anonymous stupor. She'd wanted to be a lover, too. At night, she'd lay awake, alcohol stroking a dull blush into her skin as she imagined the man sleeping above her, about what he would look like in the throes of shared pleasure.

I was right there with her. Always. But now, I'm feeling differently. I'm tired. Tired of her, tired of us. Tired of the same old conversations, spinning round and round. She lasted almost two years without actually, intentionally, honestly killing another person and seriously - good for her. Us. Completely commendable. But let's look at the facts now, my little love, let's look at the truth. A good hard look. The world belongs to the dead, so if you're still breathing, you sure as hell better be fighting. And sometimes that means we compromise, and we don't linger too long in the margin between morality and survival.

That man, the one who climbed on top of her, of me, and wrapped his hands around our neck - well, I had to do it. It was that or death. And I was so damn lucky that hatchet had fallen nearby, and that he'd wanted to watch my face as I died - if he hadn't turned me over, I wouldn't have been able to reach for the hatchet. I wouldn't have been able to aim at his temple. I wouldn't -

But I always would. I would've tried. Because that's the bargain we strike now, every second we breathe, we live. We barter in blood and bone. And we wish for something easier.

LINE BREAK

She's jealous when he hugs Carol. She tries to focus on the miracle of the baby, the little girl with arms outstretched and the confused look of a child too used to a variety of faces, as she appraises her father and brother.

She's lonely as she watches Daryl bury his face against Carol's shoulder, as the two of them sway and savour the moment. Guiltily, she realizes that she hasn't thought much about the woman she'd once tentatively called her friend - not since the last day at the prison, when she wondered where Carol was, as she hurried the kids out of the kitchen. The kids.

This reunion hurt us both; I'm not going to bother lying. Taking stock of who had lived and who hadn't shown up in the train car, counting down the levels of grief as Maggie's face came into view, and Sasha's, and Glenn's - but there was no Beth, no Julia, no Levi, no Mika or Lizzie or Molly or Luke. She plays with the pain, taking bets and tucking things away to consider later. When she's stronger. Problem is, I don't know if she'll get stronger.

I really don't.

I mean, I saved her. I was the one who drove the hatchet in, who chipped away the last vestiges of humanity, who revelled for a moment in the salvation of hot blood and a dying groan that didn't belong to me. And as I took a breath, she fled my side, running amok in her own selfish fear. "Don't touch me," and all that, and then hugging Daryl close. Pressing herself into him as he told her it was going to be okay, that she'd done what she had to do.

And so I relish, for a minute, the stink of envy rising from her skin as she watches this particular reunion. She remembers now the old deal she made in her own mind. That if he chose Carol, or Carol chose him, she would step aside and smile. Because Carol was better. Braver. Beautiful. Strong. Good for him. And God, that's all she wanted. For him to be happy.

But the jealousy snakes through the cracks of that past resolve, combined with a strange kind of embarrassment: it's hot, and fluid, and floods her skin with red. The dark-haired woman notices, looks down at clenching fists. "Hey," she says, bending down again. "You good?"

Only he's allowed to ask her that.

She doesn't like that this woman, this newcomer with her pretty hair and her pretty eyes all of a sudden wants to to know if she's good. Because she's not. She never will be again. And for all her impassioned confessing in the woods - " _I am not leaving you again. Ever_ " - had things really changed? He was more comfortable with her, she knew that. He'd held her close in the aftermath, and in the train car, in the dark, before he was taken, he'd dropped some words of comfort in her ear and sat for a while with his arm around her shoulders. She'd gotten some shallow sleep against his chest, counting his breaths instead of sheep. His chin had rested on the top of her head, and she'd never felt more...more...more _known_. As though he could anticipate her emotions without her having to articulate them.

She knows that's the way they are with each other. That's the language they speak, and most times, it's fine. But she wishes he would say it back. The abject _relief_ he shows when his arms wind around Carol - he's not hiding that in the dark. Not tugging her behind a tree to tell her how much she means to him. Carol knows. Carol gets to hear it. Hell, Carol gets to _feel_ it.

And that burns her more than the loss of so many lives. What a fucking bitch she is.

* * *

Hi.

I'm chaos.

I'm going to shake your hand and rock your world. I'm going to upend the good memories, toss them into the blue. They don't matter anymore. I'll entreat the worst parts of your soul out from the marrow of your bones and make them dance in full view of anyone you've ever loved. I'll steal your hopes and bury them in the sky. I'm every nightmare you've ever been too brave to have.

I'm an ancient goddess, made of wood and flame and stardust and the grime of a thousand sins. Prop me up beside the fire, angel, because I'm about to burn this fucker down.

* * *

 **two**

The church makes her think of her father, though to her knowledge, he'd never stepped foot in one. Not with her, in any case. But he loved wood, and arches. The strong ribbing that holds a building together, balanced and sure. She sits in a pew near a boarded-up window, and she wonders about faith. A story, just one, with many parts - a beginning, a middle, and a living end. And how it drives people on. She can't grasp at it, but I can.

It's just belief. In something bigger. She's empty now, so she can't understand, but I'm full to brim with everything she used to feel. Love and lust and loss and a deep-seated misery, burrowing into my bones. But that belief keeps you pushing on, and whether you worship God or money or someone else, you keep moving forward.

What did I believe in? Who could I pray for? Who could I pray to?

She doesn't do anything, and nobody asks her to do anything. Rick puts the baby in her arms, and that's something, I suppose. Judith needs to sleep. To forget. The new man, the preacher, with the name of an angel and guilt dripping from his lips, he tries to reassure her, smile at her. He knows she's weak, and figures she's the easy way in, based on the way everyone coddles her. If he can make good with the quiet girl, the innocent young woman who sits demurely in a pew, stroking the baby to sleep - if he can make good with her, maybe the others will trust him.

I see this. I read the cowardice in his eyes and I shift and wrap myself around her. I give her a moment of steel. "Go away," she snaps, and damn, I'm proud. Daryl notices, and he settles beside her. The preacher cringes - but whether it's the purple bruise around his eye or the glare he shoots, the crunch of leather combined with a foreboding growl, she can't tell. Maybe it's the contrast, the vivid, painful, heartrending contrast of those hands, the ones that have caused death, many in the few days prior - maybe it's the sight of one of those hands reaching down to cup the baby's head, the baby she holds in her arms. Tenderness and mercy, held by blood and war. The preacher backs away, leaves them be.

For a split second, I want to cry at the sight. Just for a second, mind you. Judith snuffles in her arms and Daryl lets his eyes meet hers for a full, heated minute, and there's something pushing between them. Or pulling, I'm not sure. There's a tug, a little _hey, fuckers, pay attention_. But there's also blood on his shirt and she can't help but touch that little spot in her mind, the one I hold. The one where I keep the darker secrets, gloating over them like bright jewels. There are ghosts there.

"Take her," she says. She chooses a pew at the back, and in the fading afternoon, in the raw aftermath of too many days of gore and slim triumphs, she sleeps.

* * *

He's gone when she wakes in the night. Moonlight brushing over her skin, softening the scars beneath the tender glow of a distant world. And she luxuriates for a while in that purging. Like being washed clean. Like she'd never touched a gun or a hatchet, or the heat of a killing wound.

She looks around for him in vain, but keeps the question to herself, especially when she realizes Carol is gone, too. So there's that, she thinks.

Unsure of what the shared absence means, she occupies herself with a meal, scraping the last vestiges of creamed corn from a half-eaten can as stealthily as possible. Around her, the small world she owns now sleeps, signs of life bursting forth in snores and coughs and the shuffling of bodies on the hard pews and floor below.

"Hi," a voice curls from somewhere near the back of the church. A familiar voice, and her eyes flick to the source, to the dark-haired woman who, it seems, just wants to be friends. "You're Riley, right?"

Four other women press at her memory. "Remember us?" they ask.

Chloe. A song she didn't want to stop singing. And Brandy, the vice, the hangover. Michonne and Andrea, her home in the wild. Only one of them still alive, and now something was wedged between them. Mich was moving towards something bigger than they had been in the woods, and she wasn't sure if she was allowed to follow.

But this new woman, she's earnest. And she's got a kind face. Not much older than her. So she lets herself relax, and nods. Yes, she's Riley.

So am I.

Her name is Tara, which is pretty and gentle as a rolling green hill. She's scared and guilty, but won't tell her anything. Instead, she asks again about her welfare, offers to get her another can of food. I watch as a friendship unfolds, a new one, an unexpected one. She'd met Chloe as a shy girl, far away from home; Brandy and Mich and Andrea, they'd known her in the after. The footnote, the one which amended the child she'd been. Now, for the first time, she met someone as a killer. An honest-to-God killer. Not a person who sometimes had bad dreams about where those bullets had flown in Woodbury, if they'd struck a skull or an arm. No, now she knew. Knew what she was capable of. Now she'd paid her entrance fee, her bloody, bloody dues.

And the truth of that stings. Even as Tara asks questions, tries to pull her away from the edge, she feels the burn of it, chasing up her spine, and darkly, she ponders how close it feels to those little sparks of pleasure. The ones his touch could send through her body, though he probably had no clue he was doing so.

If faith is fire and grief is, too, then why can't she just go up in smoke? She believed so hard in the life they were building. Yes, she drank. Yes, she tried to forget, to push the bad things away, but she'd wanted it, she'd wanted it so fucking bad. Freedom. Lazy mornings. Peace and quiet. The sweet crush of a fresh tomato between her lips; hot skin under her mouth. She'd stopped pushing it all away and she'd opened her arms up wide, only to lose it all. In a few days.

Tara notices the shadows come back, and she stops talking. Her last question trails off into the night, into the sacred silence of this church of killers. "Want to get some more sleep?" she asks.

But something new has crept into her thoughts. That question - that curiosity. The sparks in her spine, the ache in her soul, the yearning in her veins - why is pleasure so close to pain? Why does love always end in loss?

And where is he?

* * *

Once, I had a dream. A hot one. Like, damn hot. I woke in a sweat, with ghostly kisses searing my neck and chest, still wanting, still reaching, still tangling dark, sweaty tendrils of hair between my fingers. "Hey," he said, voice raspy and gruff from sleep. "You good?"

I almost toppled from my bunk. In the dream, he'd asked me the same thing only moments before, but in an entirely different context.

"Y-yeah."

"Bad dream?"

"Uh, sort of."

But here's what I never told him: it was only bad because it ended.

* * *

 **three**

Bob is gone. Another question.

Sasha pushes her to help, but she can't. Despite the hope that Tara levels at her, despite the incredulity of the other newcomers - who look at her in plain disbelief that she's made it this far - she can't do anything. She sits, and she holds the baby. Feels life fluttering low against her belly and it helps, it helps - Judith's heartbeat is the closest thing she has to salvation, in those moments.

Time grows long and then short, and she slips into a deep, luxurious lagoon of memory. She remembers her mother. Her dad. Her brothers. Life as it had been. Structured and orderly, seven days at a time. When was the last time she'd thought about a Monday? Or January the thirtieth. Who gave a shit about January the thirtieth anymore?

Her mother had loved her, but had struggled to show it. Her father had adored her, and showered her with it every day. Her brothers had teased her and pushed her and loved her and enraged her and given her the youthful, phantom high of secondhand smoke. And they were dead. They were not in this church, nor in any graveyard she could ever visit.

She thinks about crypts across the ocean, of queens and poets buried beneath the flagstones - an endless funereal accompaniment of centuries of worshippers' feet, treading carefully over their beds. A cathedral will reach so high, but it is built on the dead.

She hopes the bones of this church are as good and sturdy, wherever they are.

When the killers come, she curls into herself. They bring the horror back, the awful truth that Daryl hadn't wanted her to know. Gareth and the others, what they'd wanted from them was so much darker, so much baser than even her shell-shocked, beleaguered mind could imagine. She holds Judith as they die, as the screams rise, high as a cathedral's vaults, reaching for the sky.

The bones hold. For another day at least.

But Bob's don't.

* * *

"Wanna go with us?" Tara asks.

I'm not sure why she's bothering. In the hollow time after the slaughter, she can't say anything. She barely blinks. She stares at a book on the floor, a book that some people thought could tell you how to live a good life, but that was before the world fell apart. The manual no longer applied.

"Eugene has a cure," Tara reminds her. "There's got to be something in DC. People would make sure there was."

But that's in the movies. In the movies, the President always survives, and there are secret bunkers and deals made in the dim past that surge to new meaning when the world falls to pieces. In the movies, the guy always gets the girl and the credits roll while they make love, depending on the rating. In the movies, the bad things stop eventually, and as you're flicking off the remote and disentangling your body from blankets and a healthy coating of Cheeto dust - the bad things just stop. You don't have to live with them. You don't have to worry about your own food and your own blood and everybody you love.

The bad things just stop.

In reality, DC is probably a wasteland. And the only difference between there and the woods here is that the walkers roam in three-piece suits and dead cell-phones rattle in their pockets. And even if Eugene does have a cure, she thinks, what guarantee does she have that they will get there at all? There's a world between Georgia and Washington. A world of the dead, and a world of uncertainty. And she can't leave without him. Not without an answer. He's still out there somewhere. He didn't say goodbye, so she has to trust he means to come back.

She doesn't tell Tara any of this, because hope tastes good and Tara's drunk on it now. And if there's anything she knows, it's the inviting liquor that curls down your throat, burning away the doubt and the sorrow as it goes. She knows that well.

* * *

When he comes back, he brings her a bag and a stranger.

The boy is younger than her, but older than Carl, and his eyes are heavy with exhaustion and worry. And even though there's a story to be told, she doesn't bother to listen, curling back up on her pew and pressing her lips into the wood so she won't scream.

He tells the story to those who do listen, and as they build a plan, he comes to her. Rests one hand on the curve of her hip. Just for a second. "Hey," he says. "You good?"

She's not. And he knows that. But he doesn't always know how to start a sentence, not when it comes to her. It's easier for him to do it this way, and because she loves him, she lets him.

"Brought you something."

The backpack is green, dark green, with no bloody stains or gaping holes. When she rolls over and sits up beside him, he places it in her lap, gently as Rick had placed Judith. She holds it just as reverently, shivering with an old, familiar heat as he reaches over to unzip it, his arm just brushing her chest. When he realizes, he pulls back, but not before looking at her face. To check. To verify.

She can't feel anything, though, beyond the faint flames of that heat. It flickers and dies.

He begins to pull out the gifts: notebooks, eight of them. Two are bound in something that looks quite like leather; five others are plain black and thick; and the last one makes her smile, despite herself, despite her aching emptiness - a cartoon sloth lounges on the cover. And then there are pens, a rainbow of them, spilling from his hands as he shows her. "I know you liked writing in that one on the road," he says. "Carol and I were in an office and there was just all this stuff...just laying around. Don't know where that one came from" - he jabs a thumb at the sloth one - "but I, uh, I figured your other one is probably pretty close to full by now."

I'm a killer now, but my heart still clenches at his unbidden kindness. Here, she was thinking he'd left her, abandoned her for Carol, and he'd thought of her even then. The writing _had_ helped. Even I can admit that. Scribbling down memories and the history I had crafted - it had helped me to cope after the fall of the prison. As though I could collect in one place every person I had been. Every place I had been alive.

That notebook was somewhere nearby, I knew. She'd tucked it into the weapon bag, the one that Rick had buried. I hadn't wanted it back, but Daryl had. He'd put it in his back pocket, as though it mattered to him. Her story. My story. As though he wanted to read it again, to remember it all.

"I didn't read it," he says, and though she hadn't seen him take it out, the slim black planner she'd stolen from her little house is in his hands now. He runs one thumb over the cover, where the date of a year they had lived apart is emblazoned in gold. A date of a year with no need for appointments or reminders, tidy to-do lists jotted in the margins of a straight and sure little advance of days. _Dentist, Tuesday. Date night, Thursday. Kill a fucking corpse, Friday 5._

She takes it from him and slides it into the bag with the others, plucking a red pen from his hand. Her fingers graze his palm as she does so, and he looks up, eyes full of questions they don't really have time to ask or answer right now.

"You left."

He nods, worrying at the inside of his cheek as he does. "I know. Carol and I, we...we saw the car, Riley. The car that took Beth."

 _Beth_. I lean back into the anxiety, the fear. And I watch. Watch as her face changes, constricts into confusion. One of the last bastions of hope they're able to hold - Beth.

She doesn't say anything else, just continues to stare at him, that blank-eyed study. "We didn't find her, but the kid - Noah - he knows her. Knows where she is. Thing is, they took Carol, too."

Daryl continues, talking about a hospital, and a group, and getting Beth and Carol back. He grows more and more impassioned as he goes on, citing the burgeoning elements of the plan and the inevitable return to Atlanta. "We'll get 'em both back, Riley," he says, hope brightening his gaze. Too bright, so she looks away.

"You left me," she says now, looking down at her knees, at the backpack in her lap. The backpack he brought her. He'd thought of her, while he was with Carol, while he was looking for Beth. He'd thought of her, too. But there's something petulant in her voice now, something childish playing at the back of her mind. She's angry. Angry that she woke in the middle of the night, and he wasn't there. Angry that, despite everything she'd told him in the woods, they are no further ahead. Angry that he's not a different kind of man.

She chances a quick glance up at his face, and then instantly wishes she hadn't. _I_ wish she hadn't. Really, I do. Because he bears the hurt, bewildered expression of a kicked puppy, eyes wide as he tries to understand what she means. Yeah, he left her. Left me. But he did it to help Beth, to help the group. If she'd been with him and Carol by the roadside, she'd have come along, too.

Daryl looks around, but no one else is listening. The plan takes too much energy, too much time. It consumes them all.

"I...uh...I'm sorry," he says weakly. "Just...I saw the car, the one with the white cross, and I didn't have time to come back and explain."

He means it. I know he does. Months ago, he would have cussed me out for being so accusatory about something so simple. He would have pointed out how petty I was being, how selfish. He would've used those words because they were simpler, safer than thinking about how my reaction underlay something much bigger than they could encapsulate. He knows she's worried, he knows she's hurting. He knows she cares.

That care pushes between them on the hard wooden pew, leaving them both uncertain as to how they should proceed. But he starts talking anyway: he's going back to Atlanta, and he's already spoken with Rick - she'll be staying at the church, with Carl and Judith, and the preacher. Michonne, too. He says this all lightly, as though it's not a big deal, but she can tell by the way he chews on his thumb between the words that he's upset, or at least, on the brink of it.

She had seen Rick's eyes dart over to hers as they'd spoken. Watched as Daryl had followed his gaze, the weight that had lowered into his face as he examined her.

I'd seen it. She'd pushed it away. Into that dark little space, for me to curate.

Happily, I tended to the darkness.

* * *

That night, she slips into her history. I don't even try to stop her. I keep a lonely vigil as she meets her mother, coming to her as a little girl, covered in grass stains and the sticky cascade of a purple popsicle. Her mother - my mother - oh, the thoughts tangle now. Who are we? Who am I? A prisoner in a mind, the girl on the inside, that's me - all fire goddess and destruction and guardianship. I keep the homefires burning; I keep the record spinning.

I tumble in metaphor and rue, even as our mother's hands glide through our hair, wipe the purple from our face and hands. She's not angry, and it's the babysitter's day off, and the summer is sweet and succulent as a ripe strawberry, in the palm of our hand. She laughs now, and the music grinds to a halt, because instead of purple ice, it's blood, and it's red, and it's sticky. It won't come off.

"Mom?" we say together. "Mom, am I a good girl?"

* * *

 **four**

They always come, in the end. The dead, I mean. Moaning and shuffling. I'm not surprised. She is, though. She screams. Michonne looks at her in disbelief, and I know what she's trying to understand: how did Riley - hardy, brave I'll-do-my-best-if-it-kills-me-even-if-I'm-scared-shitless Riley - become _this_?

And in the end, when it's over, when the world has shuddered to quiet, and Glenn has her in his arms, asking himself the same fucking question, she wonders about the answer. "Hey, shhh," he says, pressing his lips to the crown of her head. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

I want a cigarette, and she does, too - so bad. She's gasping for it, willing to do just about anything for one. Like drive a hatchet into someone's head?

Oh, there it is.

* * *

Tragedy is golden-haired and limp in Daryl's arms.

Maggie's grief is an aching aria, rising high above the city. Silently, she sings along with an open mouth, nothing able to come out save shallow, gasping breaths. Small snatches of air that leave her raw. They burn, acid on her tongue, because she doesn't deserve them. Beth does. Beth should be alive right now - so young, so beautiful, so loved.

Beth had never killed anyone.

Innocent.

* * *

In the van, at first, in the days following, she tries to reconcile herself to the truth. I do, too. I encourage it. Better to live in reality. My goal is to bring us back together, the girl on the outside and the girl on the inside, so that we can go back to normal.

But absence throbs in the space between. And that absence - the utter lack of _Beth_ , and now Bob, and Tyreese, and all the others lost in the smoky, dim haze of the prison's fall, the dark days before. There will never be a "normal," not in this world. She needs to accept that. I have. Life will be short, and hard, and riddled with loss. It's just the way it is. She can't fall to pieces every time something bad happens.

She hopes Daryl will sit next to her. But he doesn't. He avoids her - avoids everyone, really. Sits alone in his guilt and his grief, and she longs to reach out, but knows it won't do any good. He just carried the body of a teenage girl, a girl he'd fought hard to protect and save. He'd carried her body and he'd buried her body.

Days pass. The vans run dry and they can't find any more fuel, so they walk. And in the walking, she finds herself. One step at a time. No one speaks to her, not even Rick, who lets her know it's her turn to take the baby with just a little nudge to her shoulder.

She finds me. In between the trees, as they melt together in a wall of faded greens and golds and oranges. She spots me in deep memory, traces the killer in the old home movies she plays sometimes in her head. Birthday parties and Christmas mornings and her high school graduation, when she'd tripped on the edge of the stage and had audibly cussed, much to her mother's eternal mortification.

I find her, too. I find her in the bunk, back at the prison, tucked beneath her sheets and counting his breaths. Screwing her eyes shut in the morning as he dressed, marvelling over his boldness, his comfort - she could've opened them at any time, rolled over and gotten an eyeful, but she hadn't.

Together, we linger in the before. Sinking into it like a warm bath after the longest fucking day. It's wine, sweet and heady on her tongue. A balm and a comfort, slithering through her veins.

Hi. I'm chaos.

* * *

The road is no home. I tell her this. We're getting closer again, I'm working my way around the stone and the iron, but she's still not listening. The road is no home, my little love, so we've got to keep going.

He won't talk to her.

She walks in silence, but savours the clarity.

Facts bubble up, make themselves known again. Who she is. Who I am. We meet in the middle. Together, we sort them out, meet in a new space.

I'm the killer, I tell her. I'm the one who killed him. I'm the one who saved your life. And you can't escape it, honey, because you're the killer, too.

And it's that, it's that in all its potent simplicity, that changes things. She is the killer. I'm the killer. I did it. I saved my own life, reached with my left hand for a slim chance at salvation, and I took it for myself. I didn't squirm there on the ground hoping Daryl would pause his beatdown to come and help me. I didn't beg. I just reacted.

The girl on the outside, that chilled her. And I get that, really I do. I understand why she wanted to be apart from me for a while, why we had to have some space. There are some things you just can't face on your own. Some issues need to be taken apart, like a puzzle. Look at each piece individually, before you start matching colours and edges, laying out the corners and working on the frame. You build to understanding; you don't just know it. And her, the girl on the outside, she just needed some help. My help.

There's blood on my hands, sure enough. And it's scarlet and searing. But there are ghosts at my heel, and demons on my back and that's just the way it is. This is who I am. This is _what_ I am.

No cheesy shit about being a survivor. Because there's no real victory in that, not when the path to that survival is littered with dead love. Young girls, with black hair and blonde hair, with music in their bones and smiles on their lips, dying because they had tried to live. I bury them now. We bury them together. Along with all the others. Beneath the flagstones of the cathedral, and we reach for the sky, we reach for the sky and we hope the bones will hold. We hope, we hope.

And with that, she holds my hand. Doesn't pull me in yet, not fully. But she holds my hand and she lets the truth wash over her. The girl on the outside whispers the words to herself by moonlight, when her belly aches with hunger and her throat screams with thirst. She reminds herself of what she had to do, what she will have to do again. To live. And she makes her peace. A quiet peace. A reluctant, squeamish kind of peace. But she understands now. The girl on the outside? She gets it.


	37. Them

_**Chapter XXXVII: Them**_

One foot in front of the other is a pretty easy way to live. It's simple. Step by step. Literally. You take things one small problem at a time. Pothole? You step over or around. Tired left leg? You pause for a minute or two, lift that left foot up, let the other take your weight for a while. Boring scenery? Try putting your brain on autopilot, let it control your path, and allow yourself to drift into memory or your own imagination.

That's how I got to know the world again. In chunks, in small problems, in little hurdles that reclaimed my soul bit by bit. And time was a hefty, awkward glacier sliding about the place, unsure of where to settle. I let myself ride along. With each beat of my boots against the pavement, I recalled the past, and I brought together, in fits and starts, my two selves: the girl on the outside, the one who was sweating, aching; and the girl on the inside, the girl who kept an angry vigil.

The distance between the two was absolutely necessary, no matter what anyone else may think. I needed to look at them as distinct elements, experiences - in order to disentangle myself from my own guilt. In this way, I was able to come to terms with the inevitable truths I should have learned a long time before. Now, that wasn't a sure fix. I still felt disconnected, a little hazy, as though I were living just behind some sort of veneer - clear and thin, but forming an interface between myself and the rest of the world. That glass bubble again.

Some things, though, broke through.

Cramps and aches, tight calves and dry mouth - life was a series of sensations then. I understood it, finally, to be a punishment. Death and misery, loss and angst, unrequited love and the fine-tuned horror of a slowly-breaking heart. It really was just a goddamn vale of tears and I was just another idiot stumbling down it. Fighting to stay in it. Clinging to the sides, pleading to remain, to try another day. Now, for the first time, I began to wonder why I was even bothering. Not that I was actively looking for a way out - I just...felt myself slipping. The girl on the inside didn't like this. But I did.

When the second van lost fuel, though, I nearly did, too. It was with a great sense of defeat and - strangely - a flicker of anger, that I slid out from the middle set of seats, hitting the pavement with tired, dusty boots, shrugging the backpack more securely over my shoulders. In the van, at least, I'd had more time to write, snuggled up against the window, angling the sloth notebook just so - scribbling away heartache and bad memories, shedding them like an unwanted skin.

The walking wasn't hard, just long. And the interminable silence I shrouded myself in only made things worse, as I didn't even permit myself the comfort of conversation. A few times, Carol tried to draw me out, and Tara, too - still staunchly determined to befriend me - but I resisted. With grunts. Shrugs. Quick footsteps to the side of the road. A wandering gaze.

Less than sixty miles. Then forty.

The walkers bloomed behind us, appearing from nowhere, a small knot of just five or six. I turned to watch them, and then paused, sweat dripping from my brow as I considered the logistics. Just five or six, but what - fourteen of us? If you counted Carl. Thirteen if not. We could take them, easily.

If we were operating at full capacity. Which we weren't.

Because here's the thing about hope - it needs something to cling to, something to anchor itself to. Without a solid foundation, it will quiver in the wind, die against the battering of truth. The truth for us, in those days on the road, was that we were hungry, we were thirsty, we were spent, and we didn't have much time left. DC was certainly still our destination, but I couldn't even bring myself to care. What would be there for us? Another threat, most likely. Another run for our lives. We'd already lost three en route. How many more would die?

Would I die?

The thought crept unbidden to my mind, though the girl on the inside tried to keep it away from me. I'd faced death before, numerous times, but had never pondered it. Never had time to think about what it would be like. For everything to be just...over. No adrenaline pumped through my veins, no instinct to keep going for love of someone or something else. There was just me - the girl on the outside, the girl on the inside - and the sultry heat of the dying year.

My eyes flicked ahead as I turned away from the walkers, focusing on Daryl in the distance. In the weeks since leaving Atlanta, when he'd emerged from the hospital bearing poor Beth's body in his arms, he had retreated deep within himself, to a place none of us could follow. He spoke, but his words were intermittent and gruff, voice raw with unshed tears. And he participated, as he always did, looking out for the group - searching for food and water, bringing back what he could. But there was no conversation for me, save for his brief, daily check-ins. A glance back here and there, to make sure I was still walking.

I'd thought, after my "you'll have to pry me off you with a crowbar" confession weeks ago, we'd have been much further ahead by now. But that, of course, was back before the truth of Terminus, before the horror in the city. Back when I thought we were headed to a nice, safe home, where we'd have the luxury of growing closer and I could further explain everything I felt for him. Now, though, we were on the road, and I had killed a man, and he'd held a dead girl in his arms and had found himself so deeply entrenched in a pain I couldn't access. I didn't know how to pull him out, and that made me feel guilty. Because if I really did love him, I would be able to do that for him. I would understand the intricacies of his emotions, would know how to point out the right things and comfort him.

What a terrible not-quite-a-girlfriend-but-much-more-than-a-friend I was.

* * *

It was too hot for the fall. Almost as though the sky itself was angry at us, frustrated that we were still alive, still walking. We needed rain, desperately; our water supplies were running low and the surrounding area, as we inched closer to the Virginia border, was clearly suffering some kind of drought. Rain would be our salvation, the biggest relief we could get. Meat, berries, plants - those were easier for us. Between Daryl and his crossbow, and our burgeoning knowledge of flora, we were able to put together a few small meals a day. It wasn't enough to keep us going, but hunger pangs abated and the sweet taste of some mushed berries helped to quiet Judith's cries. Somewhat.

Behind us, the walkers were building up even more, but Rick was still resolute in his intention to wait for a better vantage point, somewhere where we could exploit the landscape or some feature to help us tackle the numbers. Otherwise, we'd be expending energy reserves we could not afford to wholly deplete, though we were all scraping the barrel.

Daryl was gone, having slipped back into the green camouflage of the woods with Carol some fifteen or twenty minutes before. She'd stolen the words from my mouth, my dry, aching mouth, before I'd had a chance to form them. Dully, I watched them go, kicking myself for losing an opportunity to talk to him. I just wanted to talk.

But about what?

Beth? Yes. The loss that weighed so heavy on him, the guilt that had dragged him down to the very bottom of his own mind. I didn't know the whole mysterious story about the hospital, or about their time together on the road - but I knew something had been forged in their time together. Something bigger than what they'd had at the prison.

I knew Maggie had lost a sister, a friend. I knew I had lost a bright girl with a smile that could pull me from the grimmest thoughts. But I didn't know what Daryl had lost, and that ignorance certainly left me at a disadvantage.

The girl on the inside chafed at my foolishness, standing there wondering how to approach a grieving man when there were fourteen starving, exhausted people standing around me, and a pack of walkers on our tail.

Right. That.

I pivoted on my heel as deftly as I could manage; sluggishness from poor diet and dehydration had entered my bones and my muscles were currently fomenting a rebellion. The feint worked; the walker reached for me, and then I was gone, and she went tumbling into the creek below. Again and again, I folded my body away, tempting them with my exposed flesh and raised voice - and then I would abruptly jerk away, dead fingers just a centimeter away, and let them fall.

It was a dance, a dance I lost myself in, a tempting of death, and a turning away. _I'm not dead_.

The words collided with the reality. I hadn't thought them in weeks, hadn't touched that reminder. But the energy with which they slammed back into my brain caused that old rift, that old dissension, and I felt the schism.

The girl on the inside snarled and spat, and I froze. Unsure of what to do next. Around me, chaos blistered hot and ready, as Sasha went off-script and the walkers amped up, and we were forced to go hand-to-hand. Glenn shoved me hard, realizing how spaced out I was. And I watched, I watched as the rest unfolded. And I didn't give a single, solitary shit.

* * *

Daryl left again. This time, I couldn't even summon up the desire to leave with him. The girl on the inside had the wheel, and she was pissed. Having to handle things again. I let her guide my motions, one foot in front of the other - avoid the pothole, rest the left leg, take a breath and dive into the past. I'd been to DC before, I knew it well; I'd walked hand-in-hand with my father, a child in awe of time. Would it be the same? Would the flags still fly? Was it possible it had remained, a bastion against the wild decay of our world?

I sat by the roadside, and I wondered. I wondered why, and I wondered when, and I wondered who I would be when I walked in DC again. So much had changed. So much had been wrought so deep within me, structures I couldn't yet comprehend.

I was desperate to cry, but I was too damn dry.

Leaves stirred, across the road, and Daryl emerged, though our hands rested on our knives and our weary hearts jumped into our throats. The fight with the walkers had taken too much, demanded too much. And now we were spent.

Hunger gnawed at the inside of me, scratching angry nails down the cascade of my ribs. I arched into the ache, nestling myself more firmly into the ditch, allowing the roll of the earth to support me. Was I fading?

And then a snap. A twig giving way. A flutter of green, but we were all accounted for.

Four dogs, menacing and foaming at the mouth, emitted low growls as they sized us up. We all stiffened, Daryl and Rick shifting into movement, but they weren't quick enough. With four lightning-fast rounds, Sasha shot each of them, and their bodies fell to the ground with light thuds.

I closed my eyes.

* * *

"Eat."

Abraham loomed, a shadow, a Highland warrior stepped right from the page. Two chunks of meat sizzled on the end of a stick, and I closed my eyes again. I wouldn't look, let alone put _that_ in my mouth.

He had no claim on me.

I shifted again, having turned my back to the fire nearly an hour ago. I'd closed my eyes against the scrape of Daryl's knife, against the first crackling of the flames.

"Come on, sweetheart, you're dead on your feet. Eat up. Just don't think."

I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I couldn't.

The girl on the inside was pissed, because she was all instinct and logic these days. I _was_ dying. I hadn't eaten anything more substantial than leaves and a handful of berries in days. My stomach was aching, my bones were breaking, and my soul had shattered a long time ago - but protein wouldn't fix _that_. Especially not this kind.

I ignored the "sweetheart." I ignored the logic. I shoved back against his hand, clamping down on my shoulder.

"Don't be stupid, kid."

"Fuck off," I muttered. "Just fuck off."

"Eat the goddamn meat!"

"Hey!"

The stick went flying into the dirt; the scent of whisky was hot on the air, and I looked up to see Daryl, squaring off with Abraham, dust kicking up from their feet. "Don't talk to her like that," he growled. "You leave her alone."

Abraham looked down, met my gleaming gaze. " _Christ_ ," he groaned, tossing his hands up in exasperation. "Fine. Starve to death. Let her be a fucking idiot. Go right ahead."

Raw anger clenched at my stomach, but it had nowhere to go. The girl on the inside was angrier at me than at Abraham, so I tucked my knees up under the embrace of my arms and I faced the way we had come, the way back. Could we go back?

Back, back, back - let's rewind the tape. Take me back to a prison field, to a farm, to a quarry with turquoise water and a friendship just blooming.

"Riley," he said gruffly. "You good?"

He settled down beside me, further onto the road than I was situated, his knee grazing my thigh as he got comfortable. A fresh slice of meat sat wetly in his palm, greasy but cooled. He reached out, and I turned my head roughly. "No, I don't want it." Around the edges of my words, a sob lurked. "Please. Please don't make me."

I'd never even had a dog. I liked them, as a concept. But there was something more symbolic there - some line I wasn't yet ready to cross. We do what we have to do to survive, I know that. That's the rule, but there was such a _reduction_ in that action. If I reached over and plucked that chunk of meat from Daryl's hand and called it my dinner, I was reducing myself to function. To a body in need of protein. My survival depended on that.

The hot cascade of a stranger's blood had been much the same.

These thresholds, we cross them sometimes without knowing. The heat of the moment demands particular kinds of strength, and more often than not, instinct will simply take over. Helpful, really. It keeps your brain from having to actively make those tough decisions, the ones that keep you up at night later on.

But this was a threshold I _knew_ I was poised over. The girl on the inside, and the girl on the outside - her skin searing under the proximity of his body, desire and rue melding in an uncomfortable and disconcerting tangle in the pit of her empty, empty stomach. What the actual fuck was wrong with me?

"Riley," he said again, voice huskier but distant this time. He was a million miles away, another girl on his mind, the one he couldn't save. "Please, girl. Please. Just don't think about it."

I couldn't hold them back. Fuck, I hated crying, but there was just something so...so _final_ about this. If I gave in, I was admitting that things were really goddamn bad. I was admitting that I was dying, dying on the road to slim hopes. "No. I'll wait, I'll find something else," I said heavily, turning to face him fully, knocking down the wall of my knees and the guard of my arms and letting him see the tears streaming down my cheeks. "Please, Daryl, please don't make me."

He chewed at the inside of his cheek, then reached for my hand. It looked thin and pale in his, but he held it gently. Long enough for me to see a strange new scar, puckered and raw, between his thumb and index finger. But quick as I'd noticed it, he'd turned my own hand palm up, and with his other, placed the meat in the middle of it. I didn't twitch away. "Eat. Pretend it's squirrel. Pretend I finally cooked it for you."

* * *

Care filled me more than the meat. The girl on the inside calmed, came back. Gradually, events relayed themselves into logical sequence, so that life was one foot in front of the other again, and despair was the only thing roiling in my stomach. Keeping the meat down was my one priority, until the water.

Thirst had made a desert of my body, squeezing out the last vestiges of will and motivation, levelling me, quite literally, to one limp step at a time. I fell to the back of the group, my pace lethargic and broken.

Home was a distant galaxy, cold and unknown. The concept rattled around my mind, something I had once understood intimately - in the boxy contours of a dorm room; the pale blue of a tent; the stone walls of our cell. But now, on the road, with the wrong food in my belly and my veins sprawling like mudcracks in my body, I couldn't quite recall what the word meant. Was it my mother? No, she was dead.

Was it the prison? No, that burned.

Was it the little house I claimed for myself? The tight embrace of Daryl's arms? The hard wooden pew against my back? Or was it the road, the endless road? How in the hell of it could I actually be sure we were headed to DC, anyway? This was a death march. A fucking death march. And here I was, bringing up the rear.

In my periphery, a bottle with a deep, amber liquid twirled, jiggled invitingly. "Sorry, sweetheart," Abraham said roughly. "Lost my temper back there. Drink?"

I paused. Weighed my options. A drink would be easy, I told myself. One sip, a little bit of fire on my tongue. It could burn away the flavour of my own pathetic surrender, sear the memory of Beth's song from my ears. One sip of flame, and I could be purged.

That was the old bargain. The bargain of the girl who'd craved release and relief, bartered for it in the dark and in her private moments.

 _Don't you fucking dare_.

That was the girl on the inside, the girl who confronted pain. She liked to face things head on, take them for what they were worth.

But one drink. One sip.

Daryl had stopped walking, and I met his gaze over the top of the proffered bottle. He wanted to answer for me; he was desperate to do it. A "fuck off" danced just behind his mouth, closed firm in a line. He wasn't going to, though, I knew that. He was letting me choose, letting me feel the full weight of my own decision here, and I was damn grateful for that.

He was letting me be my own person. An adult. A woman capable of deciding whether or not to flip off survival or make the safer choice, and bet on herself. I indulged in a deep, fortifying breath before answering, fairly tasting the sweet burn on my lips as I did.

"No thanks," I said, shaking my head, voice cracking on the words. "And it's fine. I get it."

Daryl melted back into the woods.

And me? I found myself drunk on liberty - liberty and strangled hopes.

* * *

The water bottles were arranged so neatly, I wanted to smile. It was the sort of thing I once would have taken pleasure in - setting up the four larger bottles in a nice square; forming a triangle with ten smaller ones right beside it. The note, tucked carefully under the one of the big bottles, was neatly-composed and to the point: _From a friend_.

But all our friends were dead.

Rick snatched the note from the ground, stared at the paper so intently I thought it might actually catch on fire. _From a friend. From a friend_.

Someone was watching us.

Someone who knew our path would continue down this main road; the water was fresh and clear within the bottles, and the plastic itself was spotless, as though it had only been out for no more than a few hours (at most). The simple fact that the paper was still there and intact was most chilling - had our "friend" just finished signing off when we'd made our way around the corner, about a quarter of a mile back?

It pained me to jump to the absolute worst conclusions, but the girl on the inside was insistent, and Rick's expression said it all. This was wrong. Problems didn't get fixed this easy, not of the magnitude we were dealing with. Thirsty for days and days, no rain, no river, nothing spectacular in the cars we'd raided - and now there were litres of fresh water right in front of us? No. That didn't happen.

Poison, perhaps. Or just a trap. Get us to stop long enough on the road to overpower us, take our shit, leave us bloody and broken on the pavement.

Fear fluttered deep within my stomach, and my hand inched naturally to my knife. Were we being hunted, I wondered, heart thudding in my chest? Around us, the forest, despite the waning of the year, still grew thick and lush, the result some sort of Indian summer, perhaps - the growth was substantial enough to conceal a watcher, maybe more than one. God, there would _have_ to be more than one, if they were coming after a group this size.

"Can we...um, drink it?" Tara asked, breaking the stunned, hollow silence.

I shook my head forcefully, looking around to see that Daryl had joined us again. "No, we shouldn't," I said, as Rick handed him the note.

"What else are we gonna do?" Her frustration was both palpable and logical: we were thirsty as hell, couldn't go on for one more day without finding more water, and it was _right there_. But the risk was too high.

Rick exchanged a steely look with Daryl. "Not this," he said sharply. "We don't know who left it."

"If that's a trap, we already happen to be in it," Eugene pointed out, that slow Southern drawl grating on my ears, though it was the first I'd heard him speak in a while. "But I, for one, would like to think it indeed is from a friend."

"What if isn't?" Carol asked, gun shifting in her grip. "What if they put something in it?"

"Then let's hope we go quick," I muttered darkly, stepping back and closer to the ditch. I looked up to see Daryl staring straight at me, brow furrowed as he studied me. He'd heard. Of course he'd heard. The man could hear a fucking squirrel from a mile away. His mouth opened, ready to question me, I'm sure, but we were both distracted by a rapid series of movements from the middle of the group. Eugene.

Rosita said his name sharply, a cold reprimand, but Tara was kinder, but no less incredulous: "What are you doing, dude?"

"Quality assurance," he said quickly, lunging for one of the smaller bottles and unscrewing the cap.

When we'd found out that the true mission to DC was actually a sham, that Eugene didn't truly possess a cure for the sickness (whatever it was in our brains that turned us to walkers when we died), I'd assumed that Abraham, who was rightfully devastated by the lies, to just simply not give a shit about what happened to him anymore. I couldn't fathom that kind of betrayal: like, here, let me just hand you every hope and lingering sense of purpose the world possesses, I'll give you a mission and a reason to wake up, and then I'm going to pull the rug out from under your feet and take it all away, okay?

But I was wrong. Marginally. Maybe it was the alcohol, or some residual affection, but as Eugene tipped the bottle to his lips, Abraham reached forward to bat it out of his hands, a splash of water cascading across his face and in a wide, dark slash against the dry road. I waited for the simmer, for the telltale hiss of some poison, but there was nothing.

"We can't," Rick repeated, voice ringing with cold surety.

 _So this is how it ends_ , I thought. _This is how I die_.

On the side of a road, blood turned to dust in my veins, unaired love on my lips. A corpse, withering away only to stand up again, to consume mindlessly and wander guided only by base instinct, by ancient truths buried deep within my brain. Truths we had wilfully forgotten.

As thunder roiled, faintly at first, then growing in confidence, I swayed for a minute or two, on that road, thinking of my own death. In far clearer terms than I had ever thought about it before. Would it hurt, I wondered? To just slip away? Would it be better to lie in the grass, or under the cover of some thick branches, or to just keep on walking until I'd dropped?

And what would it be like, I thought, to watch them go?

To watch him go?

Breath shattered in my lungs at the thought, the one I'd danced around for a long time but had never directly looked at. What if Daryl died? What if the heat, the searing heat of want and love scoring through me now, what if that were to just become futile, pointless, as I stepped over his lifeless body and walked away?

The prospect was a silent scream, a beating of fists against the side of a mountain. Hopeless, pointless, utterly without purpose. And yet I turned to him, this dead hope in my eyes, willing him to understand. If I were to die of thirst and hunger, he should know, shouldn't he? How fiercely I feared a world without him in it? "Daryl," I croaked, heart in my throat. "Daryl -"

But the storm had broken before I could, spilling out into a cool, cleansing rain that soaked us through, and my mouth tipped back and opened to drink it, to let it flood me, and I turned away from his empty gaze, knowing even I could not fill it.

* * *

The barn was dry. That was the one thing going for it. The hurricane lamps were a nice addition, and the sprawling comfort of _space_ was another. We'd spent weeks in close confines - vans, small houses, a bakery, and then the road. Crammed together, desperation and misery claiming the scant spaces between.

We'd separated, breaking off into smaller groups, some sleeping, some keeping watch. Outside, the storm raged, potent and deafening, and despite the fact that I was almost twenty-four years old and had, you know, killed a man, I found myself cringing and jumping with each boom.

Something Daryl noticed.

"You good?" he asked lowly, moving closer after tossing another useless stick on to the small fire he'd worked his damndest to make.

"I'll try," Glenn said, reaching for another piece.

"Nah," Daryl grunted, shifting again where he sat, our legs brushing. I wondered if he'd realized how close he was getting to me, or if the dim light of the barn just made it too difficult for him to gauge. Not that I was complaining or anything. "It's too wet."

Another aching clap of thunder shook the barn, and I shivered. _Jesus_. I hated loud noises. Prickly tendrils of fear went chasing up my spine at the chaos of the noise, causing my hands to clench stiffly in my lap. Nope. Wasn't going to fucking cry over a thunderstorm.

"Hey, you good?" Daryl asked again, once quiet conversation had resumed in the rest of the circle.

The fire made a stranger of him, casting his face into sharp relief here and there; his hair had grown so long, so dark, that it shadowed his eyes and made me simultaneously yearn for the shorter, lighter hair he'd had when we first met, but also fight the urge to run my fingers through it now. "Fine," I whispered. "Just fucking hate thunder."

Months ago, that would have earned me a smile. A " _Stop, girl_ " - his code for getting me to shut up before I ruined the image he was working so hard to project. Maybe a little shove. And I'd have shoved him back, stuck out my tongue, chanced my goddamn luck and leaned against his shoulder for a minute.

But now he just nodded, taking it in and turning away. Preparing to slide back into that resolute silence.

Until I took his hand in mine.

I'd noticed the scar earlier - gray and puckered, strangely circular. I was used to scars and marks on Daryl's skin, as well as my own, but this one was different. It had taken me all afternoon to puzzle out what it actually was, where it had come from.

It was a burn. Likely from a cigarette being pressed into his skin.

I cupped his hand in both of mine, drawing it into the nest of my lap. He didn't resist, just let it happen, and gently, I stroked one finger over the range of his knuckles, keeping clear of the sore. "Don't do that." My eyes flicked up with my words, heated but quiet. I watched his face, his steady, sad gaze meeting mine ruefully. "D, don't do that to yourself."

The words were simple and flimsy, a childish demand. But I hated to see him in pain, hated the thought of him so desperate to feel _anything_ but that dull, yawning roar of grief and guilt that he would willingly inflict this pain on his own body. " _Don't_ ," I said again, and hoped he understood that there was more, there was so much more, plaintive words of care I didn't yet have the courage to say. I stroked his hand again, punctuating the word with physical tenderness, a language he wasn't yet used to. And in a swift movement, he entangled our fingers, so that the warmth of his palm spread through mine. He was _touching_ me. Anchoring himself to me.

I kept his hand there, and he didn't pull away. There was no force, just acceptance. Just a deep sense of _This is what I can give you right now_. I wanted to talk, wanted to tell him again that the fall of the prison wasn't his fault; that the golden-haired tragedy he'd held in his hands wasn't his fault either. That I knew he'd lost something in Atlanta. That I knew the pain ran deep, deeper than he had the strength to delve right now. But that when he did, if he needed me, I could be there.

No one noticed our small embrace, but I relished it - the sparks chasing up and down my spine at the feel of his skin on mine. Now was not the time to feel _that_ , but I couldn't help it.

"He's gonna be okay," Carol said, breaking the silence. I waited for Daryl to slip his hand from mine, but he didn't. Just sat there, forearm draped over my knee, hand in my lap. "He bounces back more than any of us do."

Dazed, I tried to figure out who she was talking about, and then followed her gaze and Rick's to where they landed on Carl and Judith, snuggled up together and sleeping soundly against the back wall of the large stall we'd decided to settle in for the night. It amazed me that they could sleep so soundly while outside, the world was torn apart, but exhaustion had absolutely shattered them.

Carol was right; he would bounce back. Carl was resilient, incredibly so - and not for the first time, I wished I could be, too. I wore the past like the scars on my legs and my forehead, stories tracing into my flesh. The burden of what I had done, hadn't done, the people I had lost - I wanted to be free. I wanted to have a home again, build something like we'd had at the prison. I wanted to introduce myself to new people with clean hands and a light heart, but how? Everything seemed so futile now. A whimpered plea into the Grand Canyon - no one would hear me ask for forgiveness, for anything. Because they'd done worse, or they'd lost more.

A sob hitched in my throat, but I didn't let it out. If I did, Daryl would pull away, overwhelmed by my emotions, and would want Michonne or even Carol to take over, and I didn't want them right now. I just wanted him.

"I used to feel sorry for kids that have to grow up now. In this," Rick was saying, and I tried to focus on him, just him, the sound of his voice over the storm. "But I think I got it wrong. Growing up is getting used to the world. This is easier for them."

"This isn't the world," Michonne interjected. "This isn't it."

Glenn sighed, bitter logic escaping him before he could think twice: "It might be. It might."

I allowed the conversation to flow around me, and I looked down at Daryl's hand, twisted and braided with mine. With my free hand, I let one finger glide against the back of his palm, and then glanced back up. Was that okay? Was it too much? He met my eyes, metal and ice, and he didn't move a single fucking muscle.

"That's giving up." Michonne sounded tired; so damn tired.

"It's reality."

Glenn was right. The world was the way it was now; I'd accepted that a long time ago. The world was death and destruction, and really, it always had been. We'd just gotten very, very good at dressing it all up, distracting ourselves from the inevitable. The walking corpses were a new addition, though, I'd grant him that.

But the world was also a hand in yours, the breathy snuffles of a sleeping baby. The world was an inching toward something real. Food in your stomach. Heat on your skin. Fresh, clean water sliding between your lips.

I opened my mouth, wanting to share, turning away from Daryl just for a second, but Rick beat me to it. "Until we see otherwise," he said lowly, "this is what we have to live with."

The flames crackled between us, and time did too. History rising up, the past we had all shared. The quarry, the farm, the forest, the prison, the road - we had lived together in the worst of it, found each other again after everything. Wasn't that a fucking miracle?

Rick scrubbed a hand through his thick, wild beard. He looked so different now; a far cry from the smooth-faced policeman I'd met such a long time ago. For a moment, as he cleared his throat and prepared to speak again, I wondered what I looked like now. It had been weeks since I'd seen myself, in the mirror of the little house - my hair was tangled, I knew that, knotted here and there. And there were scratches running up and down my arms, from branches slapping at me as we cut through the woods. When I saw myself again, really saw myself, girl on the outside and the inside - would I be a stranger?

"When I was a kid," Rick said, and his voice was heavy, weighed down with ruin, "I asked my grandpa once if he ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn't answer. He said that was grown-up stuff, so...so I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him."

He paused, long enough for me to be back on the ground, hands on my neck, stolen blood on my face.

"But he got real quiet," he continued, and I shifted, leaning just a little of my weight against Daryl's sweat-slick arm. Craving comfort neither of us were wholly sure how to give. "He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Everyday he woke up and told himself, 'Rest in peace. Now get up and go to war.' And then after a few years of pretending he was dead, he made it out alive.

"That's the trick of it, I think," Rick added, glancing up and around at our small group. "We do what we need to do and then we get to live. But no matter what we find in DC, I know we'll be okay. Because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves...that _we_ are the walking dead."

 _I'm not dead_.

If words could be poisonous, his were. They trickled into my ear, bitter hemlock, and I stiffened against Daryl's side. _No_. He didn't like it either, clumsily extricating his hand from our shared grip to grab another handful of kindling. He snapped them into smaller pieces, frustration clear in his every jerky movement. "We ain't them," he said gruffly. He moved into a crouch, looking straight into the flames.

"We're not them," Rick conceded gently, leaning forward. "Hey. We're not."

I reached for Daryl as he stood, my fingers missing the edges of his leather vest so softly that he didn't even notice. At least, I hoped he didn't.

He reached down for his crossbow, pointedly ignoring me now, so I tucked up my knees again and built myself a little wall with my arms. _Can't hurt me. I'm not dead_.

"We ain't them," he repeated, and the stall door slammed behind him.

* * *

Fury battered at the door, loosened as they were, bound only by chain and good intentions. I pressed myself against the wood, our hands overlapping, and I groaned with the weight of our lives. One by one, they joined, until we became stone - stone and sweat, hearts pounding in unison as we pushed back, as we fought, for the first time without knives and guns and knuckles, but with sheer, sheer fucking will.

My feet skidded in the soft dirt lining the barn's floor, and I swore, pressed my shoulder against the door, tears squeezing out, hot and sour, from my eyes as I pushed. Daryl was right next to me, his hand close to my shoulder, and he nodded once, and I couldn't be sure if it was a goodbye, or if it was pride, but it warmed me just the same. Rocketed through my veins and swooped low in my belly and I understood, I got it, I _knew_.

We ain't them. They wouldn't do this. They wouldn't fight and offer up their own skin for those they loved. They wouldn't tangle their limbs together and push and push against the inevitable, driven on the scantest possibility of success. They wouldn't.

We weren't dead.

* * *

As I slept, the storm became an ocean, and I sat at the bottom of it, in the sandy calm, my hair long again and flowing around me. I wasn't beautiful, because I was ruined. My legs were bare and rent with old, red scars; half of my face was on fire, and where my heart should have been, there was an empty space, the precise size of a child's fist, curled and tight and warm within me.

But the world was a jewel, a stormy one, and it glimmered and glistened around me, and a smile, a sad one, a broken one, creased my face and I looked up, up into the impenetrable blue. I reached out my hand toward the surface, fingers inching ever closer, but the moment I thought I would break the edge of the water, I found myself slipping, slipping backwards into the sand, and it rolled over me, a golden sheet, rippling atop my body until I was buried, buried and forgotten.

And in the morning, when I woke, I woke to the heady taste of companionable silence, the sweet aftermath left in the wake of a violent storm. My eyes drifted open, and met his. I smiled. Because I wasn't dead. Not yet. But just in case, just in case...

Rest in peace. Now get up and go to war, girl.

* * *

 _Thank you so much to those of you who take the time to provide reviews/feedback. I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)_


	38. The Distance

**Chapter XXXVIII: The Distance**

The storm had shaken something loose inside of me; relaxed the bonds between the two girls, one of logic and one of surrender; shifted into a relaxed, yielding state, wherein my brain could focus more clearly on the essential elements of my life now. Things had fallen into place - not a cure, by any means. Not a real solution. But there was now a law, rules. Acknowledge and tend to my wounds; eat what I had to; sleep when I could. And allow myself to feel - to feel anything I needed to, because I was alive. I wasn't the walking dead; I wasn't a corpse, void of emotion and purpose.

I was a girl who woke with a crick in her neck and straw in her hair, limbs gone dead and heavy from too much exertion. I was a girl who woke to the cool reprieve of relief, to a small kind of wisdom: things could get better.

Of course, things could also get monumentally worse, but for now, I could luxuriate in this raw hope, at least for a little while.

Suffice it to say, there was no breakfast, though my stomach ached. I stretched out on the ground, brushing away some of the hay I'd been laying on; it had left little sore spots all over my face, where I had pressed too firmly against it. Sleepily, I rubbed one hand over my cheeks, feeling the pits and valleys of the imprints, imagining just how fantastic I must look - and then my fingers traced a coating of dried drool just to the side of my mouth.

Wonderful.

"Hey." I glanced to my right, shoulder screaming with the effort. Several feet away, Daryl was perched on an old table, fiddling with the bolts on his crossbow. I'd woken once, maybe an hour or two before, long enough to smile at him, but then exhaustion had claimed me again and I'd rolled over and into forgotten dreams thick with regret. "You good?" he asked, eyes gliding up to meet mine through his long bangs.

Sleep had caught my legs in invisible sheets, tangling them up and tethering me to the floor as I stretched and yawned. My muscles were absolutely destroyed, shredded with the long, long days of walking, and the strain of digging my feet into the ground last night. I shifted my left leg, rubbing small, firm circles into the calf, and then did the same to my right. He watched, steadily.

It took me only a few steps to join him, and I was feeling bold that morning, a little more settled and sure, so I stood close enough that his knees, propped up, brushed my stomach. He didn't move away, didn't even twitch. Just met my eyes, blinking uncertainly. "Yeah," I said finally, now that I could answer honestly. "You?"

"Mmhm. Hold this." He pointed to the cocking rope on his bow. I'd spent enough time with him to know that the rope needed to be oriented correctly so he could use it to pull up and adjust the bolt within the bow, but his was old and well-used. It was tangled, somehow - probably during the chaos of the past few days. I tugged on one end gently, and he the other, trying to work out a knot in the middle with his fingers.

He fumbled for a full minute with no success. "Stop," I said quietly, brushing his hand out of the way and taking the rope in both of mine. "Your fingers are too damn big." Carefully, I worked the longer edge of my thumbnail under the edge of the knot, forcing a gap and thus loosening the tangle enough that I could simply pull the rope through. Fortunately for Daryl, I hadn't yet had time for an apocalypse manicure (read: chewing back my fingernails at least once a week). " _Voila_."

It was a small victory, but it was mine; a greater glow came from earning a faint smile, twitching at the corners of Daryl's mouth as he looked down at my hands, proffered cord now held slack between them.

A hundred quiet evenings crept between us as I handed over the rope and our fingers brushed. Sitting on the floor of our cell, handing a cigarette back and forth; the cool kiss of wine sweet on my lips; turning the pages of a book I was only half-immersed in. He had always been the most interesting thing in our cell. I'd watched him adjust the crossbow, fletch homemade bolts, stretch duct tape hopefully over all manner of tools. Ours was an uneasy kind of domesticity, both of us treading carefully around the broader implications of our close proximity, of the home we were carving out in concrete and shy silence.

Could we have that again? Not in this barn, of course, but somewhere else? Noah's subdivision had been a bust, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be other chances. And the further we got from the prison, from Terminus, from the aching memory of so much fucking loss - the lighter I felt. The storm had done something, I was certain of it. I felt like me again. Enough that I could feel a nicotine craving sparking at the back of my throat; hunger gnawing at my bones. Sensation and emotion and _want_ colliding in the small space between Daryl and I, and for the briefest moment, my eyes met his, and I was sure he could tell. I was sure he knew. Everything I was feeling. Everything I wanted.

Another few inches forward, and I would be standing between his legs, close enough to touch his knees, cup my hands around them and lean in. It was a movie thing, wasn't it? I'd probably seen it in a rom-com a million years ago - the girl stepping close, hands trailing up his thighs. Leaning forward as his gaze shifted, breathing hitched.

Jesus, what the fuck was wrong with me?

I flushed, hoping he couldn't read all that in my eyes, or the new heat of my cheeks. This sense of desire was surprising, blooming - as it did - from nowhere. Of course, I'd wanted him for a while, but that was in the past, when wanting was a possibility. When I was a girl who _could_ want, _could_ desire.

On the road, life was need. It had to be that way. We needed to keep walking, keep moving, keep breathing. I'd needed to eat that awful chunk of meat. Needed to rest; to drink deep from the sky. But now, in the yawning aftermath of that fucking storm, things had shifted again. I knew the taste of want.

Want was a cigarette, twirled between his fingertips - it was wine and whisky and summer air; it was _time_ , it was time with him. Guard duty. A supply run, my arms around his waist, even though my balance on the bike had improved and I just wanted to feel him against me. Want was a dream, a dream that hollowed me out and jolted me in the night, kicking me from the velvety confines of an unfulfilled fantasy, rudely thrusting me back into reality.

This was a dream, now. Outside, there was the road, and hunger, and worry. There were walkers out there, teeth to rend my vulnerable flesh - we would be back out there soon enough. I could dream a little longer. In dreams, there are few consequences, so, swallowing hard, I took a step forward. Daryl's knees parted for a second, yielding to my advance, and hope was a silky spirit on my tongue. Jesus, I knew we couldn't kiss here, I knew he wasn't ready for that, but I just wanted to be close, I just _wanted_ , and he wanted it, too? Didn't he?

"D, I -"

"So you're scared of thunder, huh?" His voice was gruff. Weighted. I was forced to step back as he moved the bow, ensuring it was more prominently settled in his lap, leaving little room for me to be standing so close. It was a silent message, but one I could translate easily, after so long in his close company. The hand-holding the night before, our fingers brushing just a few minutes ago - he was spent. As much as I craved his touch, that was all he could give me.

And that was okay. A slow smile unfurled upon my lips as I tossed his joke around in my head, trying to think of a suitable response. This was our old humour, a light exchange of small barbs and gentle insults. Nothing to hurt, nothing to stick, just the easy comfort of two people who knew the others' shallowest vulnerabilities and how to exploit them. As for the deeper, darker wells of insecurity, we never, ever went there. Not even by mistake. And the fact that I'd cowered the night before because of some thunder and strong wind? Yeah, Daryl could dine out on that for a hell of a long time.

I opened my mouth, prepared to fire back a retort, to tug him into this old, familiar dance, but the _creak_ of the barn doors striking through the relative silence of the space stole the laughter from my lips.

Anticipation crackled down my spine as I turned, hand stealing to the knife I'd been given at some point in the past few weeks - I couldn't even remember who had pressed it into my palm, only that it was there. If I needed it.

I wasn't aware that anyone had gone outside, but relaxed my stance when I realized that it was just Maggie, followed closely by Sasha. And a tall, slim man with wide eyes and clean clothes - a man whose presence sent a jolt of suspicion, of an old fear, streaking down my spine. Someone well-dressed? They had a place to stay. And people with a place to stay posed a threat, because they had numbers, and strength.

"Hey, everyone," Maggie said cautiously, stepping further into the barn, allowing Sasha and the new man to more fully join us. "This is Aaron."

Daryl sprang to his feet, pushing me back toward the table as he strode to the open doors, crossbow held aloft. Once he was satisfied the outside was clear, he turned his attention to Aaron, patting him down roughly while the rest of us simply stood and stared - stunned, exhausted. Afraid.

"We met him outside, he's by himself," Maggie rushed to explain. "We took his weapons and his gear."

The dusty warmth of the barn was rippling with tension, positively stretched taut with fear. Hands on weapons; eyes trained on the newcomer. I wondered how we must look to _him_. With exhaustion writ clear upon our faces, hunger in our eyes. Dirty and spent. Hollowed. But always ready to fight.

Swiftly, Tara and Rosita situated themselves in front of the closed barn doors. If Aaron tried to make a bid for freedom, or (stupidly) for more sinister designs, he had a handful of our best fighters far too close to him for anything bad to happen. Nothing bad would happen. Nothing bad at all.

I wanted to be next to Daryl.

The moment the thought entered my mind, I pushed it away. I _couldn't_ think like that, I just couldn't. I'd come too far to turn coward now. Things had progressed to such a point that I understood quite clearly that, if worse came to absolute worst, I would need to be able to strike out on my own again, or at least adapt to the world on my own again. The risk of losing the people I cared so deeply about was sour milk in my stomach, but it was the truth. And standing alone, facing this (as far as I was concerned) low-level threat without reaching for Daryl - that was a fine damn start.

There's comfort, and there's codependency. Love is finding the balance between the two, I think.

"Hi," Aaron said slowly, interrupting my reflection.

Judith began to cry, the shrill whimpers bringing us all back to the present, to the real risk posed by this stranger. To what had happened before, the last time we'd trusted a man who'd come from nowhere.

"It's, uh, nice to meet you." Aaron took an uncertain step forward but Daryl was faster, hand shooting out to keep him there, where we could all see him.

I held my breath.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked, hands on his waist, intent and bitter curiosity dripping through every word.

Maggie handed over a small gun, the make of which I couldn't make out from my distance. Rick gave it a brief once-over before tucking into his back pocket. "There something you need?" He looked back up at Aaron, levelling a steely glare at the visibly nervous man. A small burst of empathy flooded my veins; in another life, I would've stopped to talk to a man like Aaron. Asked him for help at a bar, like that time Chloe and I used fake IDs to get into a local band's show, and a man with creepy-crawly fingers had followed us around the dance floor, until a man and his wife (perhaps only a few years our senior, ironically) had made a big show of discovering their underage daughter and her friend at a nightclub "on a school night!"

I'd trusted _that_ man instantly. Kind voice, good intentions brimming in his gaze. And strangely, frighteningly - there was an old flicker in my veins. Aaron was earnest, not persuasive. He hadn't tried to sell us anything yet, not like the Governor, or Gavin, or Joe. Maybe…

 _No_ , the girl on the inside said warningly. _Wait for it - he hasn't spoken yet. They're all the same_.

"He has a camp nearby," Sasha said evenly, as though unbothered by the entire situation. "He wants us to...audition for membership."

My eyes shot to Daryl's, ready to laugh. The mental image of a talent show, of him gutting a brave of squirrels on stage, immediately sprang to mind, and I wished for a minute we could pause the whole interrogation scene so I could whisper it in his ear, watch a smile he didn't want to indulge unfurl upon his face.

For his part, Aaron just winced. "I wish there was another word," he said. "'Audition' makes it sound like we're some kind of dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." He grinned, but humour was in short supply in that particular barn. "Um, and it's not a camp," he corrected politely. "It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions. But it's not my call. My job is to convince you all to follow me back home."

A community.

In case you're wondering, hope is summer on your tongue - that faint, distant tang of warmer days; the heady scent of grass and sun and saltwater on your skin, a perfume you never want to wash off. It simmered in me, in those moments, and I looked at Daryl again, lips trembling. If he were another kind of man, he would've seen what I needed in that moment, as that hope and that promise burst and bubbled within me, as my knees threatened to buckle with the tender weight of it all - I needed arms around me. A voice in my ear - " _See? It's gonna be okay. I've got you_."

 _A community_.

I froze, breath coming ragged as I realized just what Aaron was proposing. We'd had a community once, with walls and purpose and a stupid fucking kitten poster on the wall. We'd had a home.

And it had been taken.

Was this a taunt? The universe allowing another horror to stroll into our midst, dangle hope in front of our faces and then yank it away in blood and ruin?

"I know." Aaron gave a small, sympathetic laugh. "If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" He gestured, and Sasha took a few steps forward, sliding the borrowed backpack from her shoulders and handing it over to Rick. "Front pocket, there's an envelope," Aaron explained. "There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community; that's why I brought those."

Rick crouched, retrieved the pictures as promised. I didn't even bother trying to step closer; I didn't want to see, not yet. Not until I knew it was safe; until I knew it was real. "I apologize in advance for the picture quality," Aaron added earnestly. "We just found an old camera last -"

"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl said sharply.

Here was the real test, I thought inanely. Aaron's reaction to Daryl's gruff interjection would reveal a lot about the man stood before us. I watched and waited for any indication of dismay, irritation, but found none. Aaron merely turned to look at Daryl, bearing a calm expression. "You're absolutely, one-hundred percent right," he said.

Well, shit.

If there was ego, it would have flared into anger; if there was deceit, Aaron probably would've responded with over-ebullience. But instead, he gave us this: patience. Calm.

Daryl's eyes met mine over Aaron's head, as he began to gently prattle on about the photographs. I couldn't read anything in his gaze, and so took one step forward, wanting to talk, experiencing once again that funny little tug, that urge to be close to him - but he shook his head. Subtly. Not in warning, not in outright refusal. Just - _stay_.

"Each panel in that wall is a fifteen-foot high, twelve-foot wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing," Aaron explained eagerly, gesticulating smoothly with his hands to give us an idea of the scope of his promise. "Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so."

Woodbury had had walls, too; sometimes the monsters were already inside.

"Like I said," he continued, as Rick stood and approached him slowly. "Security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people. Together, we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc -"

A punch, square to his face, stole the rest of his words. I jumped back with the shock of it, Rick standing over him as though nothing had happened at all; Daryl crouched down closer to Aaron's face, then let loose a grunt, a growl - of frustration? Approval? What?

"So we're clear," Michonne said tersely. "That look wasn't a 'let's attack that man' look. It was a 'he seems like an okay guy to me' look."

"We've got to secure him," Rick said brusquely, brooking no argument as he strode back to join the larger group. Panic burst in the back of my throat, sickly sweet. "Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."

* * *

In the cracks between our collective, waning resolve, a plan bloomed. Aaron had promised us a home; Rick resisted, treading cautiously back and forth over the wide span of doubt and lingering memory, remembering Terminus. Woodbury. What we had lost, when we trusted too soon. Who we had lost, when we assumed there were only two sides in the world anymore: the living and the dead.

Under the autumn sun, I sat with Daryl in a small copse of trees. He had his crossbow out at the ready, prepared for an enemy onslaught. But Aaron had promised; there was only one other. A friend. A friend with a smile just as warm, I imagined. A friend with hope trimming the edges of his every word.

"What do you think?" he asked gruffly, with no preamble.

Aaron had offered to drive us there, to the community, right up to those impenetrable steel walls. At Daryl's question, I found myself whirling through visions of a house, of a bed, of a bath. Elements of humanity that were beginning to slip from my awareness, from my mind. Limbs gliding through warm, clean water; a belly full of hot food. An afternoon of listless ennui, nothing to do and nowhere to go - nothing to run from.

I shook my head. "What do _you_ think? Should we trust him?"

He loosened his grip on the bow, releasing it to just one hand so he could chew nervously on the thumb of his free hand. "Dunno. Rick's right to be cautious."

"Yeah, but -"

"Think about Terminus," he said softly, watching an involuntary shudder thrum through my arms. "They told us shit was golden there, too."

Fear and hope battled for purchase in my mind, a tug of war between the girl on the outside and the girl on the inside. Logic and love. Not for the first time in our friendship, I wished that Daryl would be the type of guy to know when I needed to be touched, to be anchored to the moment by the physical reality of someone else's care. He had touched me the night before - or rather, he hadn't pulled away from my touch.

My fingers twitched on the edge of a gamble - if I reached for him now, would he tug me closer? Pat my shoulder? Squeeze me, even for a moment? Or would he jerk away, stomp off? Remind me once again that my affection for him simmered far warmer than his did for mine?

"But it's a home," I whispered, hiding my words in the rush of the wind. "We could have a home, D. Don't you want that?"

He looked at me then. Fully looked at me. Sharp eyes boring into mine, freezing me into a moment so tangible, his gaze _was_ a touch. Lingering on my skin, soft as a gentle hand, curving over the filthy, sweaty expanse of _me_. "I don't wanna lose nobody else, Riley," he said. My name was feather-light in his mouth. "I brought you to Terminus. And you coulda...we almost…"

"Hey." I reached out one hand, brushed my fingers against his bicep. "I didn't. We thought we were making a good choice, but we weren't cautious enough. I'm not saying we need to go skipping down the road with this guy hand-in-hand into the sunset. I'm just saying...oh, fuck, I don't know."

I shifted, drew my knees up to my chest, tucked my arms around them. "I'm scared. Of both choices. If we stay, keep on the road, we're going to die. I know it. But...going with him. It could be bad, too. Maybe if we just hear him out more? Ask more questions? Do you want a home? A community?"

Still, he resisted giving me a clear answer. "What do you want?"

"I want a home," I said honestly. "I want to forget the bad stuff. Try living again, make friends. Find myself...af-after what I did…"

"Stop." He dropped the bow. Touched the rise of my knee. God, my jeans were filthy. I watched one finger stroke the curve of it. It was one of the tenderest gestures I'd ever been in receipt of, and certainly the most chaste - but his skin left fire in his wake, even through the dirt-encrusted denim. "Stop," he repeated, gently. "You did what you had to do. You saved yourself. I...I...you did the right thing, girl. Don't do that."

 _Don't do that_. I'd said same thing to him the night before, his burned hand in mine. That manifestation of his pain - guilt, grief, and God knew what else - branded onto his skin. "I k-ki -"

"You did what you had to do."

* * *

"Well, every time I've done this, I've behind the wheel driving recruits back. I believe you're good people." Bound and beaten, Aaron's voice was still even, smooth. Logical. "I've bet my life on it. I'm just not ready to bet my friends' lives just yet."

"You're not driving," Michonne countered briskly. "So if you want to get home, you'll have to tell us how."

Rick squatted, map spread out before him, studying the snaking, intersecting rainbow of roads and highways. Familiarity prodded at my mind, at the edges of who I had been. The memories were murky, but they were there, jostled to flourishing by the numbers traded back and forth. Back and forth.

Aaron wanted route 16; he would tell us the rest when we reached the next point. But there was another possibility, a potential detour. I stooped to point one finger down at a red, curving line. "How about 23 north?" I suggested quietly. "It runs along generally the same route as the 16, but it's a secondary. Where exactly are we headed?"

Beside me, Daryl stiffened; Rick's eyes flicked up to meet mine, surprise evident. I hadn't said a word to anyone besides Daryl in days, let alone spoken up too clearly among the group. "Are you" - I turned to look at Aaron - "familiar with the area?" he asked, friendly smile firmly in place.

I weighed my answer. Yes. I'd been to this particular area as a child, but was a long time ago. Eons, really. Those memories involved my father and I didn't want to bring them up right now. So I just nodded. "Um, yeah," I said, pushing away my dad's face, looking at Aaron's instead. "A little. I spent time here when I was growing up, off and on quite a bit."

Daryl's eyes widened, just briefly, and I wondered why. What had he been expecting? Further north? New York City? He knew I wasn't from Georgia (that had been evident the first time I'd opened my mouth), but I'd never given him a hometown, a state. Just north. Northeast. And even that was an argument - some people thought it was the beginning of the Midwest. But my vague references to home and the life I'd lived before the end were more about self-protection than privacy, but this little tidbit seemed to fascinate him, just for a second.

"Okay," Aaron said, drawing my attention back to him. "But listen -"

"We'll take 23 north," Rick interjected. "You'll give us directions from there."

Aaron glanced at me, a plea for sanity neatly composed in his gaze. "That's...I don't know how else to say it...that's a bad idea. We've _cleared_ 16\. It'll be faster."

Rick just shook his head. Sealed our fate. "We'll take 23. We leave at sundown."

Hope burst in my soul, and the fear slid from my skin, deep stains washed clean.

* * *

"How'd you know that, about the road?"

"Been here before. There was this museum - like a living history museum - not too far from here. My dad and I used to go sometimes. I liked watching the blacksmith work. I love that smell. Burnt fire."

"All fire's burnt, girl."

"Shut up. Let me poeticize. I don't know if you've picked up on this yet, Dixon, but I'm kinda smart."

"Yeah, you are. You, uh, you sound better, too."

"I know - I know I've been, uh, off. It's just...since everything in Georgia, things have felt a little weird...inside my head."

"When I-I saw what he was fucking doin' to you...I wanted to kill him. Rip him apart. But you took care of yourself. You didn't need me. And that's good. That's why you don't have to feel guilty. Okay?"

"I know, D. I know. Jesus, when I looked over, saw you down on the ground, when they were beating the shit out of you, I almost - I almost lost my mind. I think I did."

"You did what you had to do. Wish you didn't have to, but you did good. You did, girl."

"Thanks, Dixon."

* * *

After the crash, after the herd, I tasted regret. I'd encouraged the 23, encouraged the idea of maintaining some small hold on a slim vestige of control. I'd tempted Rick to it, and then I'd been forced to watch them careen out of the way of an oncoming herd, my fingers gripping tight to Daryl's. "Oh, shit, oh, fuck," I whimpered.

Yes - _whimpered_.

Guilt slipped and slithered in my veins and I wished I'd never spoken. Wished I'd listened to Aaron.

"It was Rick's idea, too," Sasha said, voice soothing and rainwater-cool in my ear. "Calm down. We'll figure it out."

* * *

Time crept forward then, in strange increments once more. Numbly, I took stock of alterations in my own environment, in the faces around me. Eric, the man Aaron had told us about, the one from the community, seemed nice enough. In another life, we might have been friends. But the longer Rick's absence went on, the more distant I grew, retreating to the contemplative but panicked silence I had worn for weeks, on the road from Atlanta.

But as we drove, then walked, and then waited, the uneasy calm and hope I'd known only a few hours before seemed to dissipate, soured and discouraged by a hasty sense of guilt. A herd had been waiting on 23, a herd that diverted our journey and caused us to separate from Rick, Aaron, Glenn, and Michonne in the lead car.

I sat under a pale moon, watching Daryl pace. Registering with faint shock the fact that I'd just been in an RV. I hadn't had to walk a long, dusty road. I had slept properly for the first time in weeks, shared a can of corn with Daryl. There was food in my stomach, and for a while there had been something easier than despair in my veins. Now, though, I was right back where I started.

Until Rick wrapped me in his arms. Until I sobbed an apology into his chest, and he released me with two hands cupping my jaw, making sure I could see him, making sure I understood. There was no blame there, no fear. Just eyes bright with relief, with absolution. "Wasn't your fault," he said. "Don't ever blame yourself for someone else's decision."

I slept that night curled into Michonne. A comma of small, flickering will.

* * *

Eric was more than Aaron's neighbour, and that gentle reminder of love and commitment in times such as ours, from someone other than Glenn and Maggie, just seemed to make Alexandria - our destination - more appealing. I sat with Eric for a little while; he'd broken his ankle waiting for us - gotten overwhelmed by a small pack of walkers, ended up crawling under a rusty old car to wait it out, and when they'd jostled and pushed at the vehicle, a tire had rolled onto his foot.

But he was nice.

Soft-spoken, and I found him soothing. He asked me questions about Georgia, about our group, but I just shook my head. Wrapped my arms around myself and smiled to reply. When he drifted off to sleep, Aaron came back in, having had a lengthy discussion with Abraham and Rick about our route. Wiggling and tipsy because of the movement of the RV, I fairly stumbled into Daryl, but managed to slide my way down the front of the cupboard again. Together, we filled the galley kitchen.

I didn't want to watch the trees and fields rush by. Not like the others. Hope and fear, joy and guilt - my mind was a writhing, twisting mass of warring emotions, and I was _exhausted_ by them. Journeying through my own distant history on top of that? That probably would've killed me.

"You good?"

Eyes fixed resolutely on mine, Daryl nudged my foot with the toe of his boot. He knew I was slipping; knew how easy it would be for me to nestle back into silence, to detachment. How the fuck had it been only twenty-four hours since I'd woken up after the storm, suddenly brimming with physical _want_ for him, and now I was so numb, so torn?

He'd told me it wasn't my fault. But I had killed someone, I had bartered in blood for my own life and the thought sickened me still, even weeks on. Maybe because it was a….a transition. Such a violent traversing of a basic divide. Kill or be killed.

I had lived in the world as it was now for a long time before doing what I had done. Daryl had more blood on his hands than I did, and I loved him still. But I was sick, sick with rue and horror; it had embedded itself deep in my bones, so that the very second I started to feel something more than hunger, or pain, or guilt - it would surge up within me.

The day before, I had imagined running my hands up the length of Daryl's thighs, leaning in close enough for a kiss.

The day before, Aaron had come and offered us a new world, a new home, a better life.

And now, two nights in a row, I had slept within the safety of roofed buildings.

The person I cared about most - in the entire fucking universe - had offered me forgiveness, in so many words told me he was proud.

And yet, there I sat. Afraid that I would wear what I had done like a brand, like Hester Prynne's scarlet A. M for murderer. K for killer.

"There it is," Carol said, voice soft with wonder. She pointed, and I followed the length of her arm to the broad front window of the RV, where indeed, the elegant - if ravaged - skyline of Washington DC had come into view. I couldn't see it well enough, only a few of the buildings. I craned my neck slightly, and felt a tap on my leg.

"Get up. Look." Daryl grabbed my hand, pushed me up. When I wobbled on my feet, he gripped my legs, and for a full sixty seconds, I took it in. Sanctuary unfurling on the horizon; faint, hesitant love pushing his fingers against my body. Or so I hoped.

* * *

While Glenn and Abraham worked on the RV, and Daryl kept watch, I made excuses to Michonne and retreated to the confines of the woods lining the road. On pretence of having to pee, I bought myself a few minutes' reprieve, a small sliver of calm and privacy.

Privacy. When was the last time I'd had that? At the little house, certainly. But even then, Peach's presence was a constant annoyance.

Before that?

Back at the prison, when Daryl had had council meetings, I'd close the curtain on our cell door and stretch out on my bunk. Maybe hide under the covers. Sometimes I'd read, sometimes I'd sleep - most times I would drink.

Now, I sat alone against the base of a sizeable oak tree, sun dappling my skin so tenderly and wholly I imagined it to be a new body I wore. Shimmering with sunlight.

It wasn't just the man. Brandy was on my mind, too. Beth. Julia, Levi. All those kids. Then further back - Andrea. Dale. Jim and Amy. Loose threads of loss, catching on me when I least expected. They stung, each and every one. Even if I could not claim the blame for each one, I felt...what was it?

I felt guilty for being alive.

Guilty for not appreciating it more. For not _doing_ more with it. I'd lived through the end of the world; through the herd and fire at the farm; the attack on the prison; the shitstorm at Terminus. I'd lived through the flu, felt it hurtle through my body and then leave, just as quickly as it had come. I was a survivor, yes, but I was a goddamn ungrateful one.

I luxuriated in guilt, in feeling so damn sorry for myself. Daryl was right; I'd done what I had to do. That man had crawled on top of me and pressed me into the ground, wrapped his hands around my throat and fully intended to squeeze the life from me. _I had fought back_. I had _survived_.

And what did I have to show for it? A craven need for forgiveness; fleeting touches and tenderness towards the person I wanted most. And when hope did come, I found a way to quash it, to bury it beneath more fear, more panic.

I went further back. Chloe, RJ, Jill and Rhiannon. My _family_. My family - was that the problem now? That we were driving on roads my dad and I had once gone down, in search of small adventures? Is it that Virginia was so much more than a place on a map - not a place I had lived, per se, but a place where I had been _alive_?

A child. I'd been a child. And then I'd grown up and died. Reborn in a bloody tent, reborn on the road, reborn at the bottom of a well - over and over again, I woke to new conditions, new faces, new challenges and I had to find a way to mould myself in the rising. Could I do it again? Let go of that girl - inside, outside, who gives a shit? - laying in the dirt, hands wrapped tight around her throat? Let her die.

And rise up again, to a new challenge, a new world? Bury her in Georgia, just as I'd buried so many other versions of myself. Define myself in new words, introduce myself in new ways. Try again. Daryl, Rick, Michonne, and Carl knew what I had done. I knew. But Aaron didn't. Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Tara - they didn't know. Neither did Noah. It could be a secret for a dead girl.

 _Cut the threads. Cut the loose threads of what had been, leave them in the dust. Mourn your dead, Riley, but keep them buried. Claw your way from the grave._

* * *

A cheer drew me back to the group; a sudden burst of clapping and audible relief, floating through the treeline to me. Just about a foot from the edge of the woods, Daryl appeared, face drawn tight with worry. "You good? I saw you go but -"

"I'm fine," I said warmly, chancing a squeeze to his arm. "Had to, you know, go."

My cheeks were stained with dried tears; I knew he could see them. I knew he could sense the slight tremor in my hand as I touched him. Daryl could read the sky and the trees, stories in broken blades of grass, scattered streams of leaves - a person's face was no mystery to him, especially when it was as familiar as mine. But I didn't need anything from him in that moment, beyond a quick expression of concern, a reminder that someone cared. If I had nothing else, I would have him.

* * *

"Wake up, girl." I shuddered from empty dreams, long hallways with locked doors and cool marble walls. A mausoleum; I left it happily.

Daryl shook my shoulder again, until I managed to blink awake, the sunlight of the late afternoon creeping in through the windows of the RV and painting the space inside a pale, golden yellow. "We're here," he said needlessly, gesturing to the high, safe walls ahead of us, just beyond the glass.

Alexandria.

Home?

I stepped gingerly from the RV, legs still jellied with sleep. And anxiety. My fun little epiphany in the woods had purged so much from me - but new places always give birth to nerves, right? New school, new town, new people - you worry you won't be enough, or that you will be too much.

Stupidly, I found myself smoothing down my hair, adjusting the clothes that I would (I hoped) have to burn soon. Adjusting the little details of my existence so as to look the most presentable. "Hi, I'm Riley - I've killed someone, smell like death itself, and I'm really good at making lists" - that wasn't going to go over too well, but it was all I had to recommend myself.

 _Take me as I am_ , I pleaded. _Don't ask for more_.

The walls rose tall and strident before us. Great swathes of steel, reaching towards the sky. Taller than the prison fences had been; far, far stronger. There would be no need to shove sharpened broom handles and lengths of rebar through these walls; they would keep out the dead just fine on their own.

It was like seeing a goddamn cathedral. They seemed almost sanctified, in their height and security. Like paradise lay beyond.

 _Deep breath in. Deep breath out._

Daryl looked at me, stopped for a minute to brush one hand against my wrist, enough to pause my timid advance. "I'm good," I said quietly, a smile in my eyes. "I'm good, D."

With a nod, he let me go.

It felt right to wait at the gaits alone, but in company. Not clinging to anyone; not wrapped around anyone or leaning against anyone. Just me. Caught in a moment of personal renaissance, as I offered myself. Not Riley of the college, the road, the quarry, the prison, the woods - just me. Me with my lists. My reading. My love. My acceptance. My fear. My anxiety. My hope. That was all I could give, all I could bring to the gates of Alexandria, and standing there, as Aaron convinced a man named Nicholas to let us in, as Daryl fired a last wild shot at a nearby possum, as Sasha killed a walker just before the gates closed, as memory tugged at my heartstrings with the familiarity of orderly streets, sidewalks and tidy lawns - I gave myself to it. To Alexandria.

Questions bloomed around me - "Who's Deanna;" "How many weapons do you have; "Where did you come from;" but the one that made me freeze and sing and want to scream all at once; the one that thrummed through me as an electric hope, was the light, simple question of my name, from the mouth of a ghost.

* * *

 **Thank you so much to those of you who have provided reviews! Feedback is so very much appreciated, and so helpful!**


	39. Remember

**This chapter is based on the twelfth episode of season five - and I just wanted to share that it was this episode, and the events I've added on my own, that inspired Riley as a character. I worked backwards from this point to figure out how I could get an original character to 5.12, and how she would have to change, develop, and grow to become the person I wanted her to be at the gates of Alexandria. But it was important to me that she get to this point as her own person. Not the person she's revealed to be in this chapter.**

 **Riley's family and origins have been subtly foreshadowed throughout the story. Nevertheless, I have to admit to being a little nervous to write this chapter. I apologize for the delay, but writer's block took over as I tried to figure out a way to frame the revelation and the exploration. I hope you enjoy; thank you for reading.**

* * *

 **Chapter XXXIX: Remember**

 _The young woman enters the room in spasms: toes inching over the threshold repeatedly, as though testing the warmth of the air within; fingers touching the smooth brocade of an armchair, as if to ascertain if it is safe; eyes flickering from corner to corner, sussing out a potential escape route. When she finally sits, it is with a sigh and a tensing, a tautening of every muscle._

 _She is ready to run. Gone is any innocence; gone are her tumbling curls. Her body is hard and scarred; she has a tremor in her right hand and a few scratches at her jaw. Hunger strokes her skin, and defiance steals her smile. This is a warrior, sat before them; this is a story to be told._

 _Here is how a mother's heart breaks: in pieces, step-by-step, with each clipped, venomous response of her stranger-child as she asks how this came to be, how her friend died, how they survived this long, how she got all those scars. The young woman twitches uncertainly at the mention of college, at the song of Chloe's name. Hazel eyes slide up to meet her mother's, the reply and attending grief spurting out of her mouth like a sick secret._

 _Her father comes in after a while, tears in his eyes and love on his lips, and the warrior snaps and snarls. "Don't touch me," she spits, a wildcat in their midst. She rises up in the chair, and her mother sees now, sees that this woman is not her daughter, could not be._

 _Riley Jane Monroe died a long time ago, she sees that now._

 _But the mother loves her, this wildcat, this warrior. Longs to hold her close, to soothe the weeping, to kiss the matted hair, to bring her back to life, her little girl. If the dead can walk, she thinks, surely my girl can come back._

 _Little does she know, this girl is someone else's daughter now. Bought and sold by love and sacrifice, she belongs to the family outside. She belongs to the leader, who tenses his fists at her absence. She belongs to the samurai, who paces back and forth, stomach clenching in fear and hope. She belongs to the boy, who longs for sleep. She belongs to the archer most of all, he who wades through a deep mourning he cannot share, mired fast in its hold, even as he swears he will kill anyone who touches her._

 _And she belongs to herself now, finally - that self-possession her mother had once sought to instil._ I am not who I was _, she wants to say. To scream. She is dead and born anew every day, every morning she draws breath is a new promise; every night she closes her eyes is a risk. Oh, God, oh, hell - it bursts within her, so many stars, this love. This pride. This pain. Her mother sits across from her and she can't bear it, she can't comprehend it. She buried those bodies long ago, didn't she? By the side of the road, with his hands beside hers, a profane love flickering to life within her over a shallow grave, as she entombed her heart and swore her allegiance to a new cause._

 _Life._

 _Facts converge and conflate and collide in her brain, and she tries to reconcile them all: hunger shrieks loudest of all, hunger and tired bones. How long had they walked? How long had she sat in silence? How long had she avoided eyes and touches and embraces? How long since the dogs? How long since Tyreese, bloody and broken? How long since Beth, small and sleeping? How long since the prison, since blonde hair hot and wet in her hands, fever bursting in her own body, his arms around her and his promises sweet in her ear?_

 _She shakes her head in the moment, and her mother's hands move towards her, a promise of embrace, of comfort - but she strikes out, a deft blow that stops just an inch before contact. No touching. Not from you. Not from the dead. We don't touch the dead, that's the rule. They bite and they claw and they grab. We do not touch the dead._

 _The silence is delicious, when she slips into it again. Fever figments dance in her mind -_ away, away, I am not who I am _\- as her father's hands come around hers. She realizes she's been punching the air, flailing, and that the faint whimpering she hears is from her own mouth. She shuts it, stills her hands, sinks into his embrace like a deep sleep, and wakes a moment later, eyes bright and new. Dead and born, just like always. "Mom," she says, a feathery whisper that brings the tears back to Deanna's eyes. "Mom, I'm here."_

 _She is here, the girl, the dead daughter. She is here in her father's embrace. She is here in her brothers' arms, as they hold her tight and kiss her hair. She smooths it down, self-conscious of how she must look, angry that she is embarrassed. She smells, she knows that - they all do. Sweat and blood and despair, that leaves a stink. So her mother draws her a bath, fills it with pale pink bubbles that rise with the scent of sugar, and she plunges her head underwater for a beat too long, comes up gasping. Dead and born._

 _The girl scrubs away sin and she scrubs away mud. It has clawed its way beneath her, though, so that she will always leave a trail. Her mother works a lather into her hair, towels it dry and brings in another woman, a woman who clips away the tangles and compliments the colour and looks away from the scars on her legs, on her face. She slides into cotton shorts and a t-shirt that curves around arms both starved and muscled. Her mother looks away now, too._

 _They feed her soup from a can but put it into a bowl, and she dips the spoon in as they watch, waiting for her to throw it against the wall or wail and confess she's forgotten how to use cutlery. She slurps it gently, dancing the familiar edge between charm and vulgarity, and then vomits most of it back up. There is no room in her for anything else. She is so, so full - of new love, of fear, of tangled hopes._

 _The bed is soft and the blankets are too warm; they tuck her in like a baby. "I'll be right outside the door," Spencer says when she asks for a knife. Where is her gun? Where is her family? "Right here," he says, deaf to her truths. "Right here, kiddo."_

 _The pillow is soaked with tears by the time she realizes she can stand it no longer. She creeps downstairs, fingers on the doorknob. She can smell him, taste him, the burn of his skin under her lips - a kiss so soft he hadn't even noticed - lighting her way. But her mother comes with her, pity glowing from within, and she leads the poor, ragged, wretched daughter down the road, shivering in her nightclothes, until they reach the door._

 _The leader answers, and the daughter is in his arms, but the mother cannot tell if he grabbed her first or if she flew to him. They meet in the middle, the glorious middle, the heady scent of loyalty thick on the air around them, and she grasps his shirt in her fists and he cups his hand around the back of her vulnerable head, whispering some secret in her ears. "You okay?" she asks, and she nods, fingers sliding down his forearms as he pushes her back to examine her, body and soul. "You okay?"_

 _Her mother follows the girl inside, watches as faces relax at the sight of this girl, her girl - as this family welcomes her home. Grief bubbles up, bitter as gall, as she realizes what was happened. What_ she _has lost._

 _The archer holds her daughter in his arms differently - -like a shy, uncertain lover might. She fits perfectly into him, her face nuzzling into the crook of his neck like it's the safest place in the world, completely disregarding her clean, new-washed skin against his filth. An admonition crowds the mother's throat, but what good would it do? This man has offered her daughter what she cannot: peace._

 _She makes small talk at the door, eyes flickering over to the girl again and again, and to the man who holds her still, engaged in quiet, probing conversation. Deanna had interviewed him this afternoon, but had never mentioned the girl. He is too old, she thinks, maternal instinct from an older world kicking in - he will have had experiences her girl cannot share. He will know more than she does. He will ruin her._

 _But then her daughter twists in his arms, turns side-to, and his hand traces her shoulder uncertainly, eyes flickering over to meet the mother's. He lets go as though the girl's skin is on fire, steps away, and she is hurt - oh, is she hurt. The girl reaches out a hand to him, follows his gaze, and blazes back at her mother._

Away, away, I'm not who I was.

 _Deanna has never seen her daughter in love, not until this moment, and it shakes her. The power of it; the conviction buried deep in her bones, surging forward - a veritable tide, pushing and pulling, changing the air, guiding the world around them. And the knowledge chills her, even as her daughter burns, a preemptive martyr, ready for the pyre, if that's what it must be. The mother knows._

 _Riley Jane Monroe would die for this man._

 _The girl falls asleep by his side that night, sandwiched between the archer and the samurai. She does not touch him, because she has too much today, and she knows he will need a reprieve. His emotions simmer too close to the surface, and so she turns to face the samurai, the woman's eyes both dark and bright in the moonlight, and she cries silent tears that loving hands wipe away from her cheeks, because a miracle and a mourning are too much for one day, too much for one heart to bear._ Away, away _. Her breathing slows. Her eyes close._

* * *

Legs trembling, I stepped under the lukewarm stream of the showerhead, flinching only a little as the gentle jets hit my skin. For a moment, I allowed myself to swim in memory, of a thousand long-gone mornings just like this, when I'd lingered in the shower, bubbles blooming on my skin, soap suds in my hair and fingers gliding over the expanse of my soaked skin, reluctant to begin the day.

I didn't want to linger now.

With the shaky excitement of an old world explorer - every movement tinged with both a thrill and a deep sense of doubt - I went through the motions of an ancient morning. Towelling myself dry, running a comb through my sopping hair. A burst of spearmint on my tongue, spitting out blood from sore gums and teeth that have almost forgotten what it is to be clean. The clothes Spencer had let me borrow were baggy but fresh - they smelled like him, my brother, the brother I had thought dead, the brother I had buried deep in the grief-stricken recesses of my own mind. And he had left clothes on the edge of my bed, fresh and ready for when I returned from Rick's house.

From Rick's _house_.

Wonder lives in the heart of unanswerable questions, you know. Burns and beats right at the heart of them, a heady rhythm, perfect for dancing. And a continual tide of it swept over me, more on that second day - our first full one - in Alexandria that the fractured, tearstained one tht had come before. When I had walked through confusion and chaos, my name soft on the air from the mouth of a ghost. My mother, my father, my brothers - all crawling from

the grave.

I met myself in the mirror atop the dresser, the one that had no clothes yet save the ones that Spencer and Aidan had donated. My mom -

My _mom_.

My _mom_.

Tears blossomed again, stinging nettles in my eyes, and I sank to my knees on the floor, the full force of it, this hope and this miracle, stealing the breath from my lungs and the strength from my limbs. Reducing me to a little girl on the floor, tangled and strangled by the taste of a miracle. A sob cracked me wide, splitting me along the fault line of past and present, the girl on the outside, the girl on the inside - and another, another. Until the door opened and _she_ rushed in, wrapping her arms around me as though we'd never be apart, pressing my face into the refuge of her shoulder.

Physically, I'd outgrown my mother years ago - I was tall like my father, like my brothers, towering over her by fourteen. But when she hugged me, I compressed, curled into love and tenderness like a child, no matter my age. "Sweetheart," she murmured. "Sweetheart."

We stayed like that for a while, crouched on the soft carpet of my new room, until my back began to ache and sheepishly, I disentangled myself from her embrace. "I'm, uh, going to find Daryl," I said quietly, wiping my eyes.

Mom nodded as I helped her to her feet, leaning a little on the edge of my dresser. "Okay," she said, not a little dazed. I watched her head bob, something close to a nod of acceptance. "Where do you think you'll go?"

I fiddled a little with the knob of the dresser - my dresser - and dug my toes into the rich pile of the carpet. To be honest, I couldn't imagine going anywhere today. Alexandria was still a mystery, and I wasn't sure if Daryl would even welcome my company, let alone want to go exploring with me. But I did know he would be craving some space, and that I needed to be with _him_. The night before had been a leap, our reunion, him pulling me into his arms and pressing me close, asking - in low, heated whispers - if I was okay, if I needed anything.

 _You_ , I'd said, a soft secret against the hot skin of his neck, leaning back to watch the blue of his eyes expand and boil over into something so, so new.

I wanted time to ourselves. Wanted to get to know him in the shadows and contours of a new space, to re-contextualize what we were to each other, to everyone else, within Alexandria. With me as a daughter again - but this time as an adult. A woman come back from the dead.

My mother had known me as a girl only. Always a girl Lighter and brighter, free of grief, of pain. Watching her encounter me as an adult for the first time - an adult who had _survived_ , by grit and blood and sacrifice - marked a painful transition, an added element to a relationship already fractured by space and time. And death. Because as much as I had buried them, my family had been forced to bury me, too.

I left her in my bedroom, as her small, quick hands needlessly tidied the sheets I had not slept in, straightened up the anonymous assemblage of knicknacks scattered on every flat surface. It amazed me, watching her, how rooted she seemed in the past - she was almost hazy, as though I was looking at a mirage in the desert. My mother.

In my childhood, she had been firmer, more corporeal. A figure commanding respect, despite her stature. Even as my brothers and I stood over her, Deanna Monroe was still entirely capable of reducing us to chastened statues under her ire. Memory told me I had loved her, been loved in return; but the sick, frightened twisting of my stomach now made me worry - had I changed too much? Had she changed enough?

It was a home I walked through, sure enough. A home so reminiscent of my past that I had to pause now and then, reorient myself, remind my own mind that I wasn't dreaming, I hadn't stepped through time. Tasteful artwork lined the walls; books and elegant but comfortable furniture on every floor, in every room; curtains to filter the sun - curtains that _matched_. Pots and pans, neatly put away in the kitchen; bright jars of fruit and vegetables squatting on open shelves.

And in pride of place, centrestage in a small village of framed photographs, I found myself. Younger, happier. A picture from my high school graduation, the grand finale of my prep school life. The dawning, I'd thought then, of adulthood.

I'm not sure how long I stood there staring at that girl, with her broad grin and her light heart, diploma and close friends clutched fast in her hands. I'd worn my hair loose and flowing; makeup airy and sparkling. I'd spun across the green lawn of my school, freedom rippling through my veins, fireworks in my soul.

She hadn't known Chloe, or Daryl, or death. Love was an abstract concept, rooted in infatuation and teenage hormones; death even more unknown, a foreign idea with no real handhold in her life, save for the distant memory of her grandmother's funeral, literary characters loved and lost. For her - no, for _me_ \- adulthood had come later than expected. It came in blood and death and loss; an agonizing journey that, I gathered and feared, wasn't quite over yet. I had been a girl for such a long time, even in my stumbling progress through the new world as it was, and as it had become.

I couldn't quite reconcile the girl in the picture with the person I'd seen reflected in the mirror, in the teary shine of my parents' eyes. There were scars and stories, rising from my skin, and I was just….I was tired. A big, powerful part of me wanted to sink back into my family like a warm bath. Be Riley Monroe again. A daughter and a sister.

But the girl spinning in the picture? She was gone. I couldn't get her back. The best I could hope for at this point was a small reclamation, a second, softer conquering.

Gently, and as tenderly as I had helped Chloe into her grave - I tipped down the frame, pressing the old Riley down against the wooden surface of a useless fucking table, and stepped out into the fulsome reprieve of the sun.

* * *

Fall had imbued the air with the kind of East Coast crispness travel magazines used to write about. It was a time of burnished foliage, spice on the wind. The streets of Alexandria fairly glowed under the faint autumn sunshine, and I walked through the streets, I was reminded again of the past, of the communities I had grown up in - both in Ohio, our home state, and the small, suburban town in Maryland where we'd settled while Mom served in DC. I'd gone to school there, living with my dad when she had to go back to Ohio - my education clearly posing a higher value than family relations.

Memory swept wide and struck deep as I made my way through the orderly streets, navigating - with a little help from a woman named Olivia, who had confiscated our weapons the day before - the route to the pair of houses that had been offered to my group. I'd slept in Rick's last night, on the floor between Michonne and Daryl. Woken up in the dawn light to an old pose, one that would have likely had him spinning away from me, had he been aware: rolled close together, my thigh brushing his, a hand pressed against his chest. We were near enough to each other that our hair had tangled - his long, dark locks sweeping down over my cheeks.

I'd pulled away, just slightly, nudging into Michonne behind me, and then had lain flat on my back until everyone had begun to stir. I stared at the ceiling, tried desperately to regulate my breathing, my heartbeat.

And now I was seeking him out again.

The houses were large and spacious, offering more than enough room for us all - a thought that made my heart clench a little in bewildered disappointment. They were my family, but so were the Monroes. I was a part of the latter, and the former, too. But the Riley that Rick knew - the Riley that was friends with Michonne, the Riley that was in love with Daryl - was a wholly different creature to the one that belonged to Deanna, Reg, Spencer, and Aiden. I was torn, standing there on the sidewalk, half-listening to a conversation between a well-dressed, cheery Carol and _him_.

He was perched on the railing of the front porch, eyes and hands trained on the crossbow propped up against his knee. Wild, dark hair; muscles straining with the task. Heat flooded my spine and my face as I observed him, caught as I was in the storm of my latest identity crisis. Self-consciousness had me tugging at the borrowed sweatpants and t-shirt I wore, even poking a little at my damp hair. Like he would even notice.

But something had shifted last night, hadn't it? I'd stepped into his open embrace, pressed my face into his chest, whispered my need against his skin. And he'd _held_ me. In full view of everyone. In front of my _mother_.

I had handed Daryl my vulnerable soul - rent and weak with the weight of my unexpected miracle. And under that immense weight, I had lifted off some part of my burden to him, and he'd accepted it stoically. As though it was his job. Together, we'd pressed against the rushing, overwhelming tide of everything, of this great change.

"Hi, sweetheart." Carol's voice was sugar-sweet in my ear, drawing my attention away from Daryl, who glanced over his shoulder at the sound of greeting, pinning me with a gaze I couldn't quite interpret.

"H-hey." I tried to force myself to make eye contact, to focus on her, rather than the pink flush I could feel blooming on my cheeks. I tried to grow a smile on my face, one reassuring enough to comfort even me in the face of her disarming cheeriness; Carol wasn't normally this upbeat.

It was actually kind of...chilling.

"Do me a favour," she said, reaching over to squeeze my arm in a motherly gesture. "Get that one" - she jabbed with her free hand over at Daryl, who merely scoffed - "to take a shower, won't you?"

I tried to suppress a smile; I could see the dirt from here, shadowing his arms with lingering traces of the dusty road. But that was Daryl, wasn't it? He wore the world like a second skin, an armour of dirt and leaves, the faint perfume of the forest clinging to his skin. I barely heard his parting shot to Carol; my throat suddenly seemed a desert, my heart was pounding in my chest.

The sidewalk, the front porch - we'd never really known each other like this. The farm had come close, certainly. We'd spent a few evenings together on the front steps, but even then, our home had been a shared blue tent. Now, though, there was structure. Old-world structure. Orderly streets that unwound in logical paths. People with jobs to get to; school for kids. A sidewalk that marked a threshold and a transition, between the public and the private - as it always had.

I felt stuck there, in that moment, as Carol left us. Glued to the space beyond, the space that could keep us both safe.

Before the fall of the prison, Sasha had told me to share my feelings with him. But handing someone your heart - that's terrifying. And that's coming from a woman who has literally shed blood, and fought the dead for her own life.

That sidewalk - the green expanse of a slim front lawn - the rise of the porch.

That was safety. A cushion between this warm, trembling kind of affection and the genuine fear of him saying no. Or worse, him saying nothing at all.

Daryl was the least fragile person I knew, but he did possess a kind of vulnerability. A lifetime of abuse had wrought that in him. He'd lived for a long time under the cruellest illusion - that he didn't deserve to be cared for, or respected. What I wanted though, was to _love_ him. To be with him. And though I'd laid down my care for him as clearly as I could back before - before Terminus, before Beth, before _this_ \- I was still unsure if he really wanted it, too.

If it worked (and at that point, I really couldn't see it _not_ working), Alexandria could offer us some breathing room, some time to sort out pesky emotions and long-simmering questions. With that time, maybe I could revisit the sentiments I'd expressed while we were with Joe's group. Maybe I could tell him again, more clearly, more firmly, more -

"You gonna stand there all day?"

His voice was gravel, but it was also home. And I realized that standing there - the threshold was imaginary. The sidewalk meant nothing. Daryl's blue eyes met mine across the space between, shared history warming us more than the autumn sun. He pulled me in; we were always in each other's orbit, and no matter what I could tell him, or would tell him today, tomorrow, next week, we would have this: a cigarette between both of our lips, in separate moments. Time and memory that fluttered high and proud; fingers that brushed in the exchange. And a shaky breath, smokey and unsure. This time, from him.

* * *

"You don't seem happy," Daryl observed quietly, kicking out at the edge of the curb. "For somebody that just got their family back."

After a smoke on the front porch and a brief but vicious argument about his need for a shower (Jesus, he was lucky he was so damn good-looking), we'd decided to take a walk, get to know the community by foot and together, without the added pressure of any Alexandrians. It was almost disconcerting to do something so normal with Daryl as taking a walk. Our time together had always been characterized by purpose. Times when we were idle were usually spent closeted away, necessitated by injury or exhaustion. It was unusual for us to be out, together, with no one else functioning as a buffer to the rest of the world.

I wasn't surprised to see a few strange glances in our direction; we were new, after all. But Daryl seemed resolutely bothered by it, nudging my shoulder to lead me over to a curve of the main wall, sheet metal camouflage. He leaned back against it, still waiting for my answer, and I shifted from one foot to the other in front of him, wholly uncertain of how I should answer.

"My mom and dad" - I swallowed hard around the sour sting of needless grief - "they, uh….I just…"

Daryl waited with a hunter's patience and a friend's goodwill. Trust bloomed on the air between us as I searched deeper for the truth, pulling harder on what I knew I wanted to say. "They've got this image in their minds, my brothers, too. Of who I used to be. Problem is, the last time I was with them…" I waved my hand flimsily, hoping that encapsulated the past few years.

Daryl nodded. "You were somebody different."

"Yeah."

Silence fell, punctuated only by the busyness of the town around us. People calling out a greeting. Kids playing a few streets over. I took a step closer to Daryl, recalling with an acute heat the feel of him against me last night; the secret of his neck, where I'd whispered out my need, and he'd obliged. He hadn't pushed away, hadn't flushed beet red or cussed. If anything, his grip had tightened.

The urge to touch him now was almost overpowering, but I resisted. My biggest fear was pushing him away with the force of my want, my desire; I never wanted to be responsible for hurting him, and I'd come to learn that _too much, too fast_ could very well lead to pain for him. So my hands stayed by my sides, though I couldn't keep the heat from my gaze. The memory. The secret of the morning, and those that had come before, when we'd been curled together on the forest floor.

His eyes flickered down to my mouth for a second, and my heart jumped high into my throat in response. Did he - did he even realize? Did he want to kiss me, to steal the pain with a searing glide of his lips against mine? Did he want to swallow the hurt, the ache of my confusion? My eyes widened, and he must've noticed, must have connected the dots - because his next move was to lean back a little more firmly against the wall, tighten his grip on the crossbow, and look away. Towards the houses. Anywhere but at me. "You're still you," he said quietly. "They'll still...you know...love you. You're their kid."

"I don't feel it." Tears trembled in my voice. "I feel like she died, you know? They don't know anything about me, what I've done -"

"Don't," he interjected sharply, taking a swift step forward, close enough that the smell of dirt and sweat would now be lingering on my skin, too. "Don't go back there, girl."

 _Fuck it_.

I stepped forward, body loose and open, and he dropped the bow. Wrapped his arms around my back and tugged me into his chest. We stood there together, hidden from the rest of Alexandria, from questions and curiosity and disapproval - we stood there like one person. Flush and clasped together, my worries spilling from my lips as silkily as I imagined endearments might - and I scored them into his skin. He allowed it, and replaced them with tender, if disjointed, reassurances.

"I told her everything," I whispered, delayed awe and shame setting in at the same time. "I told her about Chloe and the quarry and the prison and the Governor. I told her about you."

My mother had set up recorded interviews with each of the newcomers, and had waited until this morning to do mine. When I'd returned from Rick's house, raw with sleep, she'd invited me to sit down on the couch in her - our - living room and tell my story. Everything. From the first flickerings of risk and fear back at the college, to the quarry and the farm and even Terminus. Not the drinking, though. She'd probed at relationships, the bond between Rick and I; the one Michonne and I had forged in our winter together. Ghosts pressed at the edges of my story, but I reduced them to names only. A catalogue of loss that had Mom shaking her head, Dad reaching over to squeeze my knee.

In this way, I'd unveiled myself. Given birth to a new identity, right in front of them, and still - hours later, I felt like it hadn't been enough.

And then Daryl brushed one hand down my back, and I shivered in his arms.

 _That_ was enough. That would always be enough.

"D." One letter. A password. "What if they _don't_ love me anymore? What if they decide they can't?"

I saw Georgia in his eyes. A summer sky, sweet on my skin and against my lips. There was smoke there, too, and blood. The bloodstained grass under his brother's body. The stone-grey of our cell. The purr of a motorcycle echoing in my chest. Daryl's gaze was a storm of sensations, of good and bad, and I could feel my resolve slipping. Easing into his embrace, his acceptance. "You're good," he said heavily. "If they do that, you've got us. You-you've got me."

Want was a sweeping wind, a tangle of contented chaos, and God - it was warm. _You've got me_.

 _You've got me._

"D…"

Shouts rose from somewhere nearby, and instinct drew us apart. But the touch of him lingered against me, a tattoo I couldn't see.

* * *

The gates of Alexandria were high, sturdy, strong - designed to keep the bad things out. Much to my surprise, though - particularly given that it was only our second day there - something bad had crept in despite our best efforts.

A small crowd had gathered near the entrance, a knot of concerned citizens. At the centre, holding the attention of everyone around, stood my brother, Aiden, squaring up to Glenn. Noah, Tara, and a beady-eyed Alexandrian named Nicholas. Tension rippled through the air, and beside me, I felt Daryl's body stiffen, ready for a fight.

"Say that again," Aiden said quietly, not moving a damn muscle.

My stomach soured with nerves; Aiden had always had a tendency towards arrogance. A chip on his shoulder, that sort of thing. And while yesterday, when he had called my name at the gates and bundled me into his arms, all I had felt for my brother was love, love and wonderment - now, irritation fanned deep inside of me.

The sad truth of it was, Aiden could be an absolute jerk when he wanted to be.

Slowly, Daryl advanced, clearly sussing out the situation, reading the space. He glanced over to me, and I made a subtle little gesture with my hand, at waist-level: _Just hold on. Just wait_.

Flickerings of fear began to brew in my veins, and a tapping pain bloomed behind my eyes. I didn't like seeing two members of my family - families, whatever - facing off like this. If an actual fight were to break out, allegiance would be demanded, I knew. Aiden was the type. He'd turn to me, look for validation, for confirmation, just one more thing to rub in Glenn's face, no matter what had inspired this disagreement.

"Back off, Aiden," said Tara sharply, catching my eye.

"Yeah, come on." I took a few steps closer, near enough to rest a gentle hand in the crook of Aiden's elbow. "Whatever this is about, this isn't the way to figure it out."

Ignoring me, Aiden simply reached out with one hand to push Glenn firmly in the chest.

"Aiden! Don't be an asshole."

The venom laced in my tone seemed to shock us both; Aiden turned to me with an incredulous expression. We'd argued through the years, of course we had - and while "my asshole brothers" was a common enough descriptor for me to use, it was also purely private. I'd never called him something like that to his face.

In the long look he gave me, I read the confusion. The loss. He was trying to reconcile me with memory, with his twenty-year-old sister, the girl he'd hugged goodbye at the end of a long-gone summer. Now, that girl was calling him an asshole. Standing between him and another guy.

Noah took advantage of the pause: "Come on, man, just take a step back," he said calmly.

I tightened my grip on my brother's arm, intending to pull him away, to go off in search of Mom or Dad, someone rational enough to defuse this tension - but I wasn't quick enough. He shoved Glenn again. "Come on, tough guy."

"Aiden!"

In slow motion, the world split. Glenn said something smart, something about nobody being impressed. My mother's voice rose, screeching and insistent, from somewhere behind me - "Aiden! Riley! What is going on?"

I watched the battlelines carve themselves into the asphalt beneath us, and somehow I knew, I was headed for a moment. A moment in which I would be forced to choose - my brother Aiden, or my brother Glenn.

"This guy's got a problem with the way we do things," Aiden explained snidely, turning to face Mom. "Why'd you let these people in?"

"Because we actually know what we're doing out there."

My brother twisted, drawing his arm back, and I clawed at him while I could - but it didn't matter; Glenn was faster. He ducked to avoid Aiden's blow and then, in one swift movement, brought his own fist back up to hit my brother directly on the nose.

Mom was yelling; Daryl was a blur in front of me. Fists flew and breaths came heavy as my mother tried to bring things to some sort of order, as I found myself diving for Daryl, where he was crouched over Nicholas, who'd been lunging towards the fray. Hands tight near the terrified man's neck, anger rolling thick from him. "D," I said hoarsely, willing myself to touch him.

He jerked, stiffened, and then Rick was there, grabbing at Daryl, and I swivelled at the sound of my name. "You wanna end up on your ass again?" Michonne snapped at Aiden, who was rubbing at his nose and flashing threatening glares in Glenn's direction.

There were the battlelines. Clear as fucking day.

I slapped Aiden. Right across the face. The echo of it was an audible shame; the shock in his eyes - the shock in my mom's eyes - was enough to bring a dull flush to my cheeks, but not enough to quell my anger. "Don't you _ever_ " - I jabbed a finger in my brother's face - "raise your hands to any of them ever again. I'll knock you on your ass, you got that?"

The instinct to protect the group had been drummed in me thoroughly over the past - nearly - two years. I had become attuned to the pattern of that kind of loyalty, that kind of sacrifice.

In the silence that followed, in the long, steady gaze of my mother; the shocked vacancy of my brother's eyes - I understood that I had finally made it clear. A long morning of oscillation ended in a swift, intentional afternoon - a staking of my own claim, a defining of self in the face of a simple but tough choice. I would choose them.

If it came down to it, I would choose them.

Because I had changed. I had grown in love and loyalty, and my allegiance was rooted in both, aimed at them. I had walked through death with them all. I would die for them all. And this Riley - this woman - would choose them. No matter what.

My mom knew that now. I could read it in her eyes, in the way she looked from me to Glenn, from me to a breathless, furious Daryl. He paced behind me, a caged tiger ready to launch himself back into the fray at a second's notice. And even though it half-killed me to do it, because I understood what it would mean to my mother, I turned, stood in front of him. Cupped one hand against his jaw, drew his gaze to mine.

"Hey," I murmured, soft as a secret. Just for us. "You good?"

I swept two fingers over the rough edge of his beard, felt the yielding of him, as he leaned into my touch. It was that surrender that made the rest of the world melt away, for me at least. I scarcely heard my mom snapping at my brother; her offer to Rick and Michonne, to become community constables, I didn't hear about until later. I just felt Daryl's surrender, his acceptance of my tender touch, right there in front of everyone. And when he scoffed at the developments behind us, rather than stalk off alone, he grabbed my hand in his.

After that - I don't quite remember. Time was reduced to his fingers heating mine, to the sun beating down upon us, softer than it had been in Georgia. To the history between us, tight as a bowstring - holding us together through it all. Anger, grief. Loss. Chaos. Through all of it, I had him. And he had me.


End file.
